Harden - Team high 43 Minutes: Dantoni WTF?

because he can't run an offense without harden on the floor. you saw how they looked in OT in game 3.

 

Mac played 8. I understand he is a defensive liability. But he shot 1-2 in limited minutes. He's exactly the bench gunner you want to break a drought. Use him in his role...

 

He was getting exposed every time he was on the floor. Like every time. The game would not have been close if we A. Had to take Harden out and B. Kept Maclemore in on the floor at any point.

 

Youre telling me that we couldnt find ONE of the 7 or 8 guys the thuner played that Ben could guard.

If harden can get flack for making mistakes ( which he can and did )

MDA should catch flak for essentially playing a 6 man rotation in the second half.

We need WB back to protect MDA from his own worst tendencies of immediately shortening the rotation when in danger.

PLayers and coaches **** up . This game was both . Some guys ****ed up in key situations and others, like rivers, just had **** games. MDA ****ed up by once again letting refs destroy us and with rotations.

 

I remember him getting torched once and having that (god awful) tech called for brushing Schroeder's hair. He is not good at defense. But that may seem like an airtight argument for not putting him in for 3 minutes when your team is going 3-23 from 3 --- but it's not. There's a place for offensive specialists.

The reverse argument would be not to play PJ and Cov because their defense is as good as Mac's offense but they have the offensive game of a baby deer. Use guys in their roles.

 

This is consistent from MDA. He's known for his short benches and lower than average in game adjustments. Remember game 4 in GSW in 2018 were MDA essentially ran 6 guys the entire game?!? D'Antoni has been a playoff disappointment in every stop. He's simply not a championship caliber coach. The Rockets (or any team really) will never win anything in the post season if MDA is their coach.

 

we should've gone with gordon and rivers. Gordon was hot and MDA was spooked by how well OKC played that unit in the first half ... he didnt want to give it another shot so he put in harden.

breaking news MDA doesnt trust the bench. He likes green and gordon. When russ comes back its gonna be a 7 man rotation with gordon and green off the bench.

 

Well they did fine in the first two games. Playing him the entire 2nd half is inexcusable IMO. He is known to gas out. When he started jacking up those long 3s without even trying to get into any kind of offense he needed to sit his ass down. My biggest problem with Mike D is the lack of trust he has at times. We have all this dude sit up and play a 7 man rotation in playoffs at times. You can’t close out a game running on fumes. But I can’t fault mike for James shot selection. Tired or not you have to play smarter.

 

That's not how our defense works, we are swtich everything. Which means you have to be able to guard your man one on one...Maclemore cannot do that.

Yea he probably should have played Carol or something, idk.

We dont have anyone except Demare Carrol...so well if you want him to play then what the hell, I guess that's something. Mike was way stupider last game than this game.

MDA really messed up last game....like horribly bad. This series should be 3-1 but whatever.

 

No, he was getting torched very time. He was very very VERY bad. Chris Paul targets him every time and they arent just gonna let him shoot on the other end knowing he's our best shooter.

Cov shot it well today, and PJ is our absolute best defender(yes even better than Cov). The fact is, we dont have depth, we dont have our second best player and our clutch time execution is probably the worst in the league.

 

MDA will never change, unfortunately. Playing Rivers of Ben is baffling, he’s not that good on offense, and a few minutes of Ben instead of him or House or Gordon would’ve been fine. A tiger does not change his stripes, especially old asses like Mike. I’m done with him, he’s costing us this series with again another round of watching us go 0-20 on threes and playing 6-7 guys. It has to ****ing stop. Carrol is not that bad!

 

We could argue about this until the universe implodes on itself. In no way was McLemore at fault for every score during the 8 minutes he was in the game (in which we had a lead, btw). There is a time and place for offensive specialists, particularly when you have a lead that's being whittled down due to cold shooting. I can understand not playing him during a tie game.

 

Dude almost every single time, Maclemore got targeted.....when he was on the floor. He gives up one"and 1" per game. There was no time and place to keep him in the game if you wanted to keep it close. I you want to blame Mike for something, blame him for not trying Demarre Carrol.

 

Cool, you said the same things, pretend I said the same things back.

 

No last game was so damn awful. All you had to do was call a timeout and get it to half court. THAT IS ALL YOU HAD TO DO. Thats it.

 

I can't help it if you didnt see what was going on in the game man. Chris Paul's point per possesion on Maclemore is very VERY high. He hunts Maclmemore every time, same with Schroder and same with SGA.

 

Honestly i thought ben was playing well on defense ... at the very least OK . I remember at least a few decent possessions and youre telling me he only played 8 min !?

The only reason he should play carrol is if demarre is instructed to foul the **** out of someone THATS why i want him in the game . We need to send a message to refs.

edit @HP3

its funny i think MDa blew this one and you think he blew the last one . admittedly i tuned out towards the end of last game because I was so frustrated with the refs . It was just like this game , they would not let us separate from OKC ... and we were worse from 3 of course.