The Benching of James Harden by the Coach Kevin McHale

Don't underestimate Reddick, he's turned out to be a pretty good player.

 

Part of the reason for benching Harden was, there is another game tonight, coach should have thought we at least get one. Basically the way we played last night, it's hard to catch up after three Qs.

 

I've always defended Harden when it came to his lack of defense, but last night I was completely disgusted by Harden. It was almost reminiscent of Mcgrady's toronto game.

I really hope for his sake he really was hungover but I doubt it.

 

Exactly my point.

 

no need to bench harden, its partly mchales fault for not having plays drawn up. when him and morey wakes up and realizes howard/harden or not kobe/mj dream/shaq and start drawing up some SG plays for harden and use him like wade did in his prime, and not a ISO pg will will be better. until then we can continue getting happy about harden points & stats but wont go far at all in playoffs

 

harden always looks like he is hungover all the time so that wasn't it. I'm sure he was discouraged that when he did take it to the basket not a single whistle blew. I counted at least 3 drives where he should have been at the line. I think that frustrated him.

I like that Mchale did bench him.Nobody is above team, not when they're this young. It shows that coach has matured also. Message received. watch out nba.

 

I believe he's pretty average overall, but an amazing fit with the clips. You have:

1) DJ and Blake Griffin living inside, so the average distance of a defender to Reddick is off the charts. Well, the court is only so big but elite shooters don't need much space.

2) The above two setting screens(50/50 questionable imo) are very good at helping the Duke product get open.

3) He has the best floor man in the NBA, who also commands, giving him dimes.

 

chasing Red Dick around like a headless chicken threw him off in the first quarter

After that he seemed out of it, pretty embarrassing if you ask me

 

Very strange thinking. Did you see the game? Lin's stat line was very good and boosted his PER to 20.60 from 18 and change. +/_ depends upon the other teammates you are playing with, and is a grossly inaccurate measure of a player 's performance. RAPM (Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus) is a much better stat . See the NBAStuffer.com web site for a discussion of all +/- stats. It's an eye opener.

 

Totally agree with you on this....

Every superstar has an off night.... But they contribute in different ways... rebounding, assist, defense, etc... That's something Hardin has to learn and understand.

T_Man

 

Why does everybody more or less agree with the reason for benching Harden. To me that doesn't mean much and no way it was disciplinary. Just a simple matter of no chance to win + game today, nothing more, nothing less. What disturbs me is that nobody, so far, has taken responsibility for this loss (which should be coach + either Harden / Howard). Superstars get the credit and they get the blame, that's how it works. I hope one of them will be that guy because they are both mentally fragile and we need a star that can be a leader, who is tough and does not buckle under pressure. I have a feeling with Harden & Howard, we might never have that and we will probably never win big.

 

I hope this will be a big wake up call for everyone. Go Rockets!

 

exactly people look at stats and highlights too much, just watch the game. you'll know who is actually playing bad

 

Last night was an example of Coach making a statement to everybody on the team. Harden wasnt putting out any effort, especially on the defensively. Coach McHale gave him plenty of opportunity to work his way out of the funk he was in, played him 33 minutes. So he bench him because of his lackluster-ed effort on defense.

Yes the Coach is to be blamed for not making in game adjustments when the Clippers were dropping bombs after bombs on us.

And Harden most definitely gets the blame for his p*** poor effort last night.

But hey we live and we learn, on to the next game. Lets blow the Trailblazers out tonight.

 

I feel like if they play a team that has a SG that likes to run off screens and whatnot McHale should have someone else guard him instead of Harden and put him on someone else. Either that or he should actually go over the fundamentals of helping on D or PnR D.... Our perimeter D looks pretty awful.

I felt like we were going to lose this game since this was our first real test and our 3-0 start was against sub-par teams. I mean the 19 point comeback in Utah was impressive, but that first half is pretty much how we looked during the whole Clipper game. The Rockets were just lucky that Parsons came to play in that Utah game to keep them in it.

Bottomline, I don't think the Rockets need much help with offense, but mainly focus on D. Sometimes I wish I could see JVG coaching this team...

 

+ and - numbers most worthless metric there is. Redick torched harden and the rest of the team got credited with the -. Stupid.

 

Yep. JJ Reddick was burning him on drives and layups

No one played good D the entire night...

 

I think it was disciplinary (even if McHale won't admit it publicly), and I hope Harden thinks so too. Wake-up call.

 

After Lin got his 4th and 5th fouls, it was pretty much over. He stopped/couldn't play aggressive D and just continued to get destroyed on the pick n rolls.

Not saying it would have made a huge difference if he wasn't in foul trouble since Chris Paul is too quick for him.

I figured for games like this, just let Chris get his points but stop the rest of the others from scoring..

 

yeah lets give harden a pass because he was chasing redick around lol