Don't you love it when a small number of tactical decisions wind up being incorrect and forum posts like these paint the coach's entire decision making, character, intelligence and all bonafide accomplishments as overshadowed and irrelevant. Fact is - we are in 3rd place in the west. Missing our starting point guard and a big investment Finney-Smith has never played at all yet. We took the champs to double overtime and won multiple games we weren't favored to win. Lastly a decent measure of coaching "prowess" IMHO is the delta achieved when you enter the 3rd quarter after coaching adjustments. Fact is we are +1.4PPH 2nd half vs. 1st half which shows our coach is out coaching the other side on average.
IME is doing a B+ job. I marvel at some of his weird lineups, and his stubbornness about sticking to his standard (playing today "hot" hand, even if that mean leaving your best 3pt shooter on the bench) on last-must-make possessions. But he's still figuring out how to integrate the team after losing 3 starters.
Until hou starts blowing out teams consistently like okc, then they might have a reason to contend against the champs. I mean you can see it, do you really think Hou has a chance against the champs in 7. Hou offense is so predictable