Losing 2 home games in a row to Blazers, who we beat 3-1 in regular season, is not the end of the world. But we are on the verge of a short and painful playoffs trip, if things don't change. This could be the end of McHale as our head coach. We kept talking about getting a third star, while it's all nice if we can pull it off in the off-season, but I don't think that's what we desperately need. IMHO, what we lack most, is player leadership. To be more specific, veteran leadership, not on the score board, but on the bench, in the locker room, and on the floor. I've been complaining about that for a long time. Looking back, we were miserable at playoffs, in terms of results, after the Dream era. Till we got guys like Worldpeace, our team suddenly grew in the mental department and persistence on court. Except for a couple of days of Marc Jackson, we never had any veteran leader at the back court. Young talented players have been playing through, at will, without any mentoring. Steve Nash took Dirk for private sessions at workouts. KG used to be like TMac, he went to WCF with leadership from Sam Cassell. Sam Cassell is a perfect veteran leader you want on your team - he gave them some points on the court, but more importantly, he was so vocal at the sideline and practice. Even with his bad back wrapped with hot pad, lying on the floor of the side line, he was still loud and clear. He praised young players when they did the right thing (not necessarily scoring), encouraged them when things got tough, pointed out their in-game mistakes. I always wanted Andre Miller to be in that role for the Rockets. But wait, both Sam and Andre have a mid-range game, that's a big no-no for Morey. Our head coach couldn't enforce discipline to our young stars or star wannabes, nor could he calm down our players at games. As lots of posters pointed out how disheartening to see Harden gave up that play after he missed a bad shot near the end of last game, I think if the head coach can't hold our young stars accountable, maybe some vocal veterans can give him an ear-full. Big shot Bob or Fisher, their regular season stats were not impressive at all, in their last seasons, but when it was crucial time, they "imposed their will to the game", literally, unlike talking points from young stars. Too bad, veteran leadership doesn't show in stats nor does it pop up in programmed filter systems. We would have had multiple championships only if all players are machines. As human, heart and mental sound vague and intangible, but they actually matter, especially coming playoff time.
Even God would not be able to help the Rockets due to stupidity of the coaches and players. So it doesn't matter.
