That's a copout argument. You break zones with shooting and the ROX are developing the infrastructure with RGV to play a high volume shooting style. With the two RGV centerpieces from last year now on the main squad, you should give it a go, at least for awhile to see if it works.
The Rockets took 35 threes. And dropping your fan opinion about playing some "rookie" just up from RGV is weak. You do not understand if Canaan was feeling ill, tweaked something, or just was a really bad match up. Unless of course you have a reserved chair at the coaches meetings.
Rockets are one of the worst shooting teams in the league they didn't need to shoot more 3's they need to run a competent offense
Running a competent offense will make outside shooting somewhat easier as well. McHale and Morey need to realize that.
The Rockets got 2 dozen wide open threes last night. It is not the strategies fault if the shots aren't falling. And just because you do not understand what you are seeing does not mean the Rockets are not running a competent offense.
Not sure if Canaan should have played over Terry or not, but I don't think he should have played over Garcia. For some reason Cisco is the needed hockey goon for OKC games. If things get out of hand, he will make sure that he's the one that gets out in front of things and takes the suspension for everyone. You really needed him and Bev for a game like that. Back to Terry.... All I know is he was a bad defender before... now he's just simply awful. He has virtually no ability to stay in front of younger guards in the league, and far to often just cannot make it through picks. We all know that McHale has trust issues so its not a huge shocker, but I'll have to wait and see if this rotation continues or not before I pass judgement. More than likely Garcia will probably get put back on ice in due time (they play the Thunder again Jan 15th), and you'd have to think Canaan will continue to get minutes. They are going to have to get him to attack the paint a little more though. Someone has to expand their offense a little more other than just chucking up threes all game long and that's it.
That's average number of threes for the team right? Against such a pronounced zone the number should go up. Competent offence against the zone is shooting threes, that's not really something new. Let me reverse the argument: the Rockets had 15 shots blocked. How many shots do you want blocked before realising that going inside is not working against this D?
Certainly a chicken and an egg argument. But not bad. I kind of like it. The Rockets threes were not falling so they attempted to take to the rim and get fouled. The got fouled and could not make the free throws. From an offensive stand point a completely FUBAR night. But they still won. But all in all 44% of their shots were from beyond the arc. Nothing worked at all on offense. Hopefully we won't see that bad of a performance again this season.
You really think McHale and Morey never thought of having a competent offense? Or you're just writing stuff that even you don't believe. . . .
It's not a copout at all. They won the game. You want to change a win, which opens the possibility of a not-win, i.e. a loss. The team is 9-1 and you want to make changes, in order to play more D-League stars. You can at least understand if some people say "Don't mess with success (especially by relying on players fresh out of the D-League)."
I might start trusting McHale the day he keeps Harden on the bench (to rest) early in the 4th (as he normally would) even if we're down by 10. He lacks conviction. As soon as he's put in a tough situation he panics and aborts the game-plan.
On the contrary it shows great conviction in Harden's ability. Seems to me McHale has huge cojones to say "OK, Harden ISO, now go win us the game" and Harden does it, in both Philly and OKC. Call it dumb X's and O's or call it "how the game was won." I don't think it lacks conviction, though.
This is exactly the way I feel about him too. If you look at the Portland series he showed this in game 1 when he pulled Dwight despite the fact that we were winning the game, just because Stotts started the hack a Dwight. You have to trust your $20 million dollar man in these situations, you can't just pull them at the first sign of adversity. Until that game, I thought the Rockets were a better team than Portland and had a mental edge against them, after that game I felt the opposite. It's not all McHales fault, but his late game decisions really showed that he had no confidence in his players.
I guess you feel the same way with Pop's when he pulled Duncan out during a defensive position during the finals that they lost.
Not sure which possession you are referring to? Did it actually effect the outcome of the play? Heat got lucky at the end of game 6 and Spurs choked it away, its not the first time Spurs choked. Im not here to defend anything Pop has done, he doesn't coach the Rockets. I think he's a great coach but I don't put him on a pedestal among NBA legends or anything like that. If the Spurs don't tank for Duncan its very possible that Popovich career resembles that of George Karl or Don Nelson. I can only speak about what McHale did, and he gave that Portland team a lot of confidence right out of the gate.
McHale is an absolute hack. Always two possessions late in calling the timeout and when he did call it, the play out of the timeout was Harden holding the ball for 15 seconds then a turnover
