McHale said in his presser they had run out of timeouts and that's why he didn't call one during GSW's 2nd quarter run. However, I remember Mark Jackson saying he McHale was letting his team play through the difficulty as a learning experience, a la Phil Jackson style. I could've sworn they had timeouts by looking at the bottom of the screen that shows how many timeouts they had. Does anyone have a recording of the game to check? If McHale was wrong on this, it doesn't look good at all on his coaching acumen. Many thought he should have called a timeout to stem the tide on that run, and if he thought he didn't have any, that's really bad.
Nah, you could see the Rockets were begging him not to. They wanted to pull themselves out of the rut.
Are you saying had timeouts left at the end of the game? I think they had 1 left, but they were waiting to use it if Houston could have made a basket down by 4 on what ended up being their last possession. They would have then fouled one more time, called timeout, shot a buzzer beater and hoped. Didn't work out that way, obviously. McHale calling a timeout in the 2nd would not have changed anything.
Every time the Warriors scored, our guys were signalling to McHale NOT to call the timeout. They wanted to right their own ship. I think with a veteran group like we have, it's important for the coach to trust his players. I think the players truly appreciate that.
I didn't notice that (not saying it isn't true, just that I didn't catch it). I was screaming at my TV for McHale to call a TO as you could sense the Warriors getting into a rhythm while nothing was going right for the Rockets during that 2nd half run. After the clippers series, I think Mchale has earned the benefit of the doubt, at least for me.
I do think McHale should have pulled Howard, as he pulled Harden two games ago. Whether due to injury or his sudden urge to fumble every pass and dribble, Howard was stinking up the place. With Capela we were killing it. Probably Howard was begging not to be pulled and McHale didn't have two superstar sitdowns in the same week in him.
Well, if he won't call a TO, could he have at least had someone take a hard foul to disrupt the Warriors momentum? We can't afford all these 15 to 20 point swings... especially on the road.
Yep I was screaming at the TV but I am not coach. The Warriors seemed to by starting to fire on all cylinders and needed an interruption. That run was really frustrating to watch.
It looks like someone else thought the same thing here: http://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/36n6vx/question_in_the_postgame_press_conference_why_did/ I'm getting a copy of the game and will be able to look at what the screen said. I should have that in about 10 minutes. It's kind of strange, but McHale's post-game presser isn't on the Rockets' site. They might have not put it up there since it would expose McHale's mistake. I have no problem if he decided to let the players "play through it," but to not know they had timeouts, and be kind of snide about it to the media, doesn't look good.
They wanted to right their own ship and it cost them a double digit lead. McHale should have and needed to use his timeouts. Howard wanted to stay in the game in game 7 against the Clips and McHale pulled him after foul trouble. Harden wanted back in in game 6 but McHale let him ride the bench. He gets paid to make these decisions and him calling a timeout doesn't signify mistrust between his players. He messed up, end of story. My dog always slobers when I'm eating but that doesn't mean I just fork over my food because that's what he wants.
Okay, I got a screengrab of the game when Mark Jackson was saying that McHale was talking about McHale was letting his team play, and that's why he wasn't calling a timeout. Jackson was an NBA head coach for 3 years and has all the game information in front of him: it's obvious from his statement and the screenshot below (hopefully it works) they had plenty of timeouts (those 5 little dots below "Houston" are timeouts, not fouls). McHale didn't say in his presser he was "saving" timeouts or "letting them play through it." He clearly said, "We didn't have any timeouts" and "Where I was going to get them?" It's also odd Rockets.com doesn't have McHale's press conference video on their site, but have Harden's. They may be trying to shield the big mistake McHale made unless I'm missing something on the rules of using timeouts, but that would make Mark Jackson wrong, too. If anyone knows about some strange loophole in the timeout rules, let us know.
It didn't look like embedding the screenshot in my last post didn't work, but here's the direct link to it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bh6hkl5kgp9xqqg/plenty_of_timeouts.jpg?dl=0
You could see j smooch putting his hand up towards mchale every time he took the ball out after GS scored telling him to not call a TO and let them play thru it... I have no problem with it but as much as I'm a fan of mchale... You got to call at least a 20 sec timeout to at the very least slow the momentum down they had to end the half
The no time out was the right call. To stop the bleeding especially against The Warriors you have to score back quickly. We tried... Just didn't execute. I bet Pop and PJ would've let them continue in that same situation. A timeout would've lost trust in the players especially when they waived off the timeout and plus Oracle would've gotten even more nuts with a timeout. It's all a moot point though. Games are not won or lost in the 2nd quarter. Even with that run they had.. We were right where we wanted to be going into the half.
Don't know why people aren't seeing the larger point: McHale thought he had no timeouts when he had plenty. If that's true, that's pure incompetence.
