Howbout all? Lebron with 2 superstars stepping up Kyrie & Kevin and Lue's adjustment's timeouts and substitutions
It would be nice if the players came to play every night, but they don't. As a coach it is your job to make substitutions to get players into the game that are giving maximum effort. However, I'm into max effort, if I've stood around the entire game watching Harden, Westbrook, and McLemore jack up shot and then get on me for not giving max effort. G.O.H!
Both coach and players are mentally weak in final 2 minutes. Kings final 3 pointer is over 15 feet wide open. Where are the defenders?
Dan Toni told the press that "they" (players, or "player" singular) didn't follow instructions given them. Which is why they blew the defensive assignment.
Look at all these teams that are now doubling Harden, and it's working in terms of win/loss record. You know who wouldn't ever consider doing such a thing if he were coaching against Harden's Rockets? D'Antoni. Because he does nothing.
Can't tell if you are serious or not, but in this day and age you can literally watch that entire sequence over and over again and answer your own damn question. It's super obvious what happened - Tucker tried to bump Harden's man who was cutting backdoor and obviously that was what enabled his man to be that wide open. No idea what the defensive call was supposed to me but it looked to me like Tucker instinctively stayed with Harden's man a beat too long and the offensive play call was perfectly designed with Tucker's man being open as an option. After that it was just a great read by the inbounder - it was great execution offensively. It looked like Houston had the right defensive call against it - everyone was covered as they should have been except for Tucker who probably should not have tried to cover Harden's man cutting to the basket given the only way that backdoor play would have worked is if there was a perfect pass thrown OVER Capela that somehow still managed to be thrown fast enough that Harden couldn't recover - which is highly unlikely given Harden wasn't that far behind the defender. Tucker just blew it by staying with Harden's man when he shouldn't have. Tucker instinctively tries to cover everyone's defensive mistakes out there and in this case, it was that small distraction that allowed his man to get wide open. Game. I love Tucker and it would be accurate to say he unfortunately cost us that one but it would also be accurate to say he needed to trust his teammates more and given the team's inconsistent focus on defensive work this season, you can see WHY he didn't trust his teammates so it really was a team loss there. That is why you need to focus on defense every play to get to that level of trust. That is why Houston will never be an elite defensive team until that is a priority and under Dan Toni, it's probably never really going to be a priority.
You pay them millions. If those guys are still talking championships, not showing it for 40 minutes a game, that is on them entirely.
Leaders of the team, the players who get paid the most. If your 40mil per year player shows up with no energy, how do you expect vet min guys to play with effort?
What sposed to happen... is the players come in and work hard every play they're on the floor... This should be led by the superstars making the fat checks... as they're sposed to be leading the team to greatness... If anybody aint putting forth the effort - then its on the coach to pull the guy and give the minutes to somebody that wants to put forth the effort... Problem is... A) We've sold our soul to Harden... He's so great in so many ways that the org has decided to just ignore any shortcomings and just coddle him to keep him happy and not leaving town... This could be viewed as just an unfortunate sign of the times - as we see a more rigid guy like Pops losing a talent like Kawhi... so idk... I dont like it - but it is what it is... B) MDA is a wuss who doesnt develop his bench outside of necessity... He runs his short rotations and leans too heavily on his starters in pursuit of regular season greatness... Lake of effort seldom has any repercussions on our core guys bc MDA would rather have 75% effort from a proven commodity - than go through the growing pains of developing unproven players...
That Navy seal from 2015, he's in charge of the effort. Tilman is too cheap to afford another motivational speaker.
Crazy how that lazy bum Harden is able to extract so much all time level production while giving next to no effort. A true legend.
You clearly give up the 2 pointer and stick with everything above the 3 point line...Then to see our best defender PJ, get lost on D was totally disheartening...