McHale - You Can Coach Them Hard - Can You Really?

Holy common sense Batman! We actually have a reasonable person on the BBS.

Not only that, but do people really think that James hasn't gotten better at defense throughout the year? I'm not saying he's good - in fact, he's my least favorite player I can ever remember to watch on defense - but he has gotten marginally better. For people to act as though no one addresses this with him is stupid.

The fact is that James chooses not to put effort in defensively, the problem is that James is our clear cut best offensive player by not a relatively small margin. We are a very shallow team (especially after the trade) and I don't know where these people come from saying we should go to our bench like it's some kind of untapped reservoir of potential. We have possibly the most shallow team in the league. We have played all year where we are 1 injury away from the lottery.

 

Why do you guys bother? Or even expect flaming to have a coherent point of view?

He only has one objective - crap on LOFs and/or Lin. That's it. What's the point in arguing with him?

 

The superstar caliber player that McHale was may not have required much coaching when he played. As time goes on, he'll get better and better as a coach and the "young" team will grow on him. The players seem grounded and very self-motivated; hopefully they will figure enough stuff out on their own. Everyone's learning something all the time.

 

He said nothing about Lin... wtf are you smoking?

He actually pointed to exact stats showing that Harden is not "overplayed" on a bad team, especially when you consider the minutes that other stars are logging on better teams.

 

Defense starts with your best player. That's why you see Popovich right in the face of Duncan and Parker when they are not playing right. I doubt they even tell Harden in the video room that his defensive effort is poor.

 

ah but raksol and conquistor are known/reputed to be LOFs. He's just out to try to refute them, no matter what their points are.

 

Harden has not been getting better at defense. If you've watched the games recently, he's been very poor on defense. And although you rate Harden correctly as Harden is boss, you underestimate Asik, Lin, and Parsons. The Rockets don't feel they have something special solely because of Harden, our other guys are actually really good as well.

 

It is a matter of definition.

To me, the coach needs to set the tone.
As a fan, I expect nothing less than maximum effort out of my favorite teams.
It's obvious, from this standpoint, why I like Mchale's up-front and honest style. He's very clear to his players about the value of effort.
There is no excuse for being out-hustled by the opposing team.

I view Mchale's barking from the bench as I would a training wheel on a bike. If players start leaning towards doing things wrong, he's there to tell you.

It's up to the players to prove that they don't need to be coached "hard".

 

I don't think anyone is disputing that.

 

If you don't think he has gotten better since the beginning of the year, I'd say you didn't watch the games. He used to literally run out of the way of guys on fast breaks, now he at least digs and sometimes gets steals. I now see him actually get up on his guy's hip during step-up screens (only S&R coverage I think he plays decent). Every game you'll see him make a couple rotations (although he will only ever rotate from 1 spot over) and he never did at the beginning of the year.

I'm not saying he's even an average defender, but to act as though he doesn't do things somewhat better from the beginning of the year is completely incorrect.

 

I'll take your word for it. But I've watched every single game twice, save one or two of the depressing losses (but usually even them) and I've seen the same bad stance, back straight, wrongly angled approach, not checking penetrators with his body all year long. Granted, I can't say definitively, so ill defer it to you if you've really seen it. I don't doubt for a second that the team is and has been addressing this issue cuz, well, they're not r****ded, but the results have been minimal to me. Just my opinion.

 

He also overplayed Cbud and brooks over Parsons/Clee and didn't play Patterson till after half the seaoson was over. Anyway RA played a system which maximized his team's talents but his subs and mid game adjustments were horrible, I don't think he's a good coach for a team like this with so many young guys and even talent. Honestly I think the best coach for this team might be Sampson, when he was the coach the only teams who beat us deserved to beat us.

 

I think if you start a thread like this that is heavy on criticism the poster should also give suggestions as to a better solution. It's easy to criticize, McHale has certainly left a lot to be desired. I definitley understand the critism of rotational decision making. But, what available options are head and shoulders better than McHale? Don't give me Jackson or Sloan, we know those guys aren't coming out of retirement unless it's under ideal conditions.

I personally disagree with the post. This team is not underpreforming, if anything it's overpreforming. The type of inconsistency that we see from this young team is to be expected. The lack of defense is what's most alarming, but do any of you think that McHale isn't in there every day in practice stressing defense?

 

I agree his defense is atrocious, I would never argue that. His stance is pathetic and he never closes out properly.

What I will say is that he has improved some aspects of his defense. If you watch James play post D, he's actually pretty good (only thing he does well on defense IMO). He does make simple, obvious rotations that he never used to make. He doesn't default on calling "rocket" (our "switch" call on screens) when that is not the gameplan at all. He would "rocket" with PPat all the time earlier in the year and you could literally see the coaches throw their hands in the air...

That being said, I hate his defense, and I hope he ****ing gets the memo that he'll never be on a championship contending team if he personally does not play hard defensively.

 

How do you see D-Mo's D or Robinson's? Parsons? Lin's? Asik's.
and do we they really say rocket in game? All the players?

 

Playing history means absolutely nothing. Phil Jackson was put in games to foul people. He sucked. Hes maybe the greatest coach ever. Popovich, did he even play in the NBA? Your argument sucks. Lin is useless when he cant hit a shot? O ya, besides getting into the lane and finding teammate for open looks, playing good D most of the time, etc etc. what's useless are your posts bro, u don't have a clue

 

For the record: Larry Bird/Bill Russell were the only elite players who also were great coaches.

 

Yeah that's our defensive switch call - "rocket".

Dmo's D is so bad he rivals James in my opinion. Same type of problems (stance, close-outs, not seeing the ball, not thinking ahead on rotations) minus the effort - which gives me a bit more hope that he will one day be a decent defender, it's just not going to be this year.

Robinson is for sure better than Dmo, but I honestly haven't seen enough of him to know his tendencies. He struggles on screen/re-screen and mid/high S&R, but all rookies do to some extent. I don't know if he's just not used to running our defensive schemes in those situations or if I just haven't seen him enough to know.

Asik is our best defender in my opinion.

Chandler gambles too much and makes me want to kill him with how much he stands in no-man's-land (too far to help ball and too far to close-out/recover). That said, if he is challenged or wants to play D, he can - which makes him more frustrating this year.

Lin is actually a pretty good defender as long as the other team's PG isn't some crazy athletic guard (Lillard and Westbrook come to mind). I enjoy seeing his defensive positioning on help side and a lot of his steals are because of his positioning (the opposite of what Chandler does) - he is positioned correctly for the help or the hard stunt-and-recover. Really athletic guards tend break him down on the dribble quite a bit, but if that's the worst thing you have going on defensively (that a really good athlete playing PG breaks you down on the bounce), you're doing fine in my opinion.

All just what I personally see and my opinions.

 

I don't feel that he is anymore overplayed than the best players in this league.

I don't like LOFs like yourself, I'm completely fine with Lin. Show me where I criticized Lin in this instance, in fact show me where I criticized Lin lately.

Kind of pathetic for you to accuse me of having only "one objective" when I have been a Rocket fan way before Lin was even playing high school basketball.

Keep giving me more reasons to be annoyed with your bunch though, you sure make Jeremy Lin proud.

 

One thing that confuses me about McHale is that he doesn't stagger Lin/Harden minutes. They are both good at playmaking.