I have said it before and I will continue to say it until it changes. This teams succeeds and fails based to a large part on how McHale gets in the way with rotations and minutes decisions. McHale will run Harden (and Parsons) into the ground for each game win with no vision for the future. McHale and the team does just fine when McHale doesn't try to get slick with substitution patterns. During our win streak, you could almost predict who was coming in at what time very consistently. This game, because we weren't blowing out a team or had a double digit point lead, instead on believing in his players and that they could get it together enough to be a less talented team, he tried gimmicky lineups to try to win the game. He made no lineup substitutions to fit in game situations during the last crucial seconds of plays when there were timeouts and Jackson was clearly seen making these types of substitutions to put his team in the best possible position to succeed. McHale just went with the players that had already been on the court for almost all of the fourth and overtime with no attention to detail to "ride the hot hands" I guess. Poor ability to understand the other teams intentions and set up a strategy to STOP it. We all knew Curry would get that inbound pass on their last score in regulation. Inability to coach his players on how to stop it and/or get the FOUL TO GIVE before a shot could be taken. If McHale would just stick to a rotation and minutes pattern, we will still lose our share of games, but he would be out of the way instead of making stupid decisions that probably do our team more harm than good. I can't understand for the life of me why Casspi got over 18 minutes in last nights game. Worse decision of the night tied with not putting his team in position to foul before a shot on the last play in regulation.
FIRE MCHALE FIRE MCHALE FIRE MCHALE @HoustonRockets: 37-18 overall. Currently 3rd in West RT @NBAGuru: West Standings since Jan 1 1 Hou 16-5 2 Mem 17-6 3 Okc 18-7 4 Lac 15-7 5 San 15-8
One loss on the road against a really good team in an arena that's tough to play in, after winning 8 in a row....and here comes this again. Relax and enjoy the ride people. Jeebus.
Let's not get on McHale. I'm not his biggest fan, but let's leave off for one loss. When our bigs were being whistled for semi-ridiculous calls and I see Jermaine O'Neal get away with obvious flops and hacking across Dwight's arms, coupled with a lack of sharpness in the Rockets overall, you could kind of see where this game was headed. The fact they almost won is surprising enough.
I agree with this 100%, except for this is really not just about this one game. It's more about when we do lose, there is a pattern that comes from McHale as well that normally results in the loss. But if I had to say our main reason for losing this game, I would say the way it was officiated. Call me a homer.
major s/o to mchale on that play call up ! he had 2 double screens set up it was a lot of movement on that play, dmo set the first screen and cleared way to the other side to the 3 point line, then howard set 2nd high double screen, then harden forced double team which brought dragic off bev which lead to bev being wide open to hit the clutch shot. harden had 2 options on that play to kick to bev or to take the layup. this was a big improvement for McHale ability to draw up plays in late game situations.
Let's all be in agreement that if the rockets somehow blow this lead against the kings, then he should be fired.
I just wish he would use Lin and the bench better. We are going to need J Lin and the rest of our rotation come playoff time.
Well it is not happening. So just calm down. McHale is not going anywhere. The Rockets are 20 games above 0.500. And preparing to go +21. Find something else to complain about.
The fact that people still think McHale could possibly be fired when we're 20 games above .500 in the West makes me chuckle.
Tonight was Harden's big night and I really tried to stay out of anything related to Lin. But since this isn't bashing on him at all and related towards Mchale, I thought coach Mchale did a great job and gave Lin a fair shot tonight. There was one stretch were they were dwindling the lead down from 30 to 20 or so, Mchale looked like he was ready to pull the plug on Jeremy but he kept riding it for an extra 3 or 4 possessions hoping Lin would correct the ship. Unfortunately, Lin didn't so he did the right thing and called timeout to prevent the game from getting out of hand.
The team would either have to collapse down the stretch or lose badly in the first round for McHale to get fired at this point. Right now, they have a very real shot at matching the franchise record for wins in a season. They have to go 19-6 the rest of the way to accomplish that.
Haha. Calm down and don't throw a fit It wasn't a serious comment. Didn't actually think it was possible to lose that game with that lead
