60 replies to this topic

[thejohnnygold]

Thought we'd open up another thread to talk about McHale--for real this time.  Let's all make an effort to keep this on topic.

 

I thought it might be a good idea for everyone to give him a rating 1-10.  1 being terrible (said in Charles Barkley's voice) and 10 being unbeatable (said in Hakeem's voice).  Back up your rating with stats, opinions, or total nonsense.  Have fun and let's all play nice

 

I'll throw out my current number for him: 7.  I like how he is handling the team.  I like the way they are gelling.  I like that they are developing an edge.  I like the development of Dwight's post game.  I like that Harden is passing more.  I like that he can take Morey's data and put it to use on the floor.  I like that he is a no BS straight shooter.

 

I would still like to see some more set plays for special circumstances.  I can't understand why we don't seem to know what a give and go is.  I feel like he is getting better at in game adjustments, but he has lots of room to improve.  I'd like more funny soundbites as well.  The guy cracks me up.

[08huangj]

5

[Steven]

Terribly Unbeatable.

[thejohnnygold]

Terribly Unbeatable.

[Cooper]

I'd say 6 maybe 7. He's done a nice job improving the defense and offensive continuity. The team has met expectations, players seem happy and lack effort isn't an issue.

[Steven]

Terribly Unbeatable.

Damn those uniforms sucked.

[PhillyCheese]

In my opinion, McHale should have made an important change in the roster against OKC - play Lin more.  Now before anyone calls me some three letter acronym, hear me out - Look what Gerald Green and Jodie Meeks did to the OKC perimeter defence.  It's not like they scored 25 pts, they scored over 40 pts each.  Attack attack attack.  With only Harden to key in on, it was much easier for Ibaka to come off his man and for Westbrook to double down on Howard and anyone else in the paint.

 

One area where I think McHale can improve is to modify his game plan against certain teams.  He did a really brave thing of putting Garcia in there after such a long hiatus, so it looks like he is getting there.  But he could have done a little more.  

 

McHale does a good job of managing egos but not so good with devising a tactical game plan that is dynamic - i.e. able to adjust on the fly.  Maybe Finch can step up a bit more as I don't think the other asst coaches are as "creative".

[timetodienow1234567]

He deserves an 8 for the regular season so far. But at this juncture the postseason matters more. So overall I'd give him an incomplete. If he fails in the postseason losing in the first round or failing to be competitive in the second round he can still get a 3 or lower overall and be a massive failure.

[rockets best fan]

McHale gets an INC from me. he has done a fine job this season helping the teams get pass some of it's short comings, but playoffs is all that matters to me. I want to see how he handles us in the playoffs when the real pressure comes.

[marvelman821]

7 for mchale. only because they have a good record and beat some playoff teams.  the problem i have with him is it doesn't seem like he has any type of gameplans or defensive schemes. 

 

clippers and thunder to me are the top 2 teams in the west and it shows because the rockets have not been able to beat them yet. i would toss out the games prior to the all star break since the rockets were playing the thunder or clippers on a back to back or at the end of a road trip.  but the most recent games against the clips and thunder to me foretells what would happen come playoff time. 

 

take last night's game against the thunder. if i were mchale i think it would have been better to have garcia on durant earlier to help at least frustrate him a bit. the rockets tried hard to score in the paint but were getting stopped. the 3 was not falling either. westbrook was penetrating at will. perhaps mchale could have implemented a zone defense to stop the penetration.

 

overall mchale needs to learn to gameplan prior to teams they have trouble beating especially against the thunder and clips.

[marvelman821]

In my opinion, McHale should have made an important change in the roster against OKC - play Lin more.  Now before anyone calls me some three letter acronym, hear me out - Look what Gerald Green and Jodie Meeks did to the OKC perimeter defence.  It's not like they scored 25 pts, they scored over 40 pts each.  Attack attack attack.  With only Harden to key in on, it was much easier for Ibaka to come off his man and for Westbrook to double down on Howard and anyone else in the paint.

 

One area where I think McHale can improve is to modify his game plan against certain teams.  He did a really brave thing of putting Garcia in there after such a long hiatus, so it looks like he is getting there.  But he could have done a little more.  

 

McHale does a good job of managing egos but not so good with devising a tactical game plan that is dynamic - i.e. able to adjust on the fly.  Maybe Finch can step up a bit more as I don't think the other asst coaches are as "creative".

i agree. Lin and Asik deserved to stay in longer.  Lin was pulled after that one bad turnover to westbrook.  I thought Asik was actually playing better than Dwight Howard last night.  When they got the lead down to 5 with Lin and Asik still playing, Harden was playing point and holding onto the ball too long for a few times. I think it would have been better to have Lin bring it up and set some plays for Harden to get open.  set some double picks or something. they all stayed around the perimeter.

 

In addition, once they got the lead down to 5, Brooks put Westbrook back in.  Immediately, Mchale should have put Beverley.  WEstbrook was on Lin playing aggressive defense which lead to that turnover.

 

Matchups is the key to winning in the playoffs and if Mchale does not learn to adjust to really good quick defensive teams like the thunder then they won't get farther than the 2nd round.

[Mario Peña]

He deserves an 8 for the regular season so far. But at this juncture the postseason matters more. So overall I'd give him an incomplete. If he fails in the postseason losing in the first round or failing to be competitive in the second round he can still get a 3 or lower overall and be a massive failure.

Completely disagree with this. I think McHale has been an 8 maybe a 7 and the playoff result will depend primarily on the players in my opinion. I expect a devastating end to the playoffs mostly dependent upon matchups.

I think it's kind of funny that timetodie, rockets best fan and others are quick to point out the obvious, the playoffs haven't started, right we all know that. Y'all sound like a broken record, one that skips on about the same 3 songs (there's a rockets best fanism without the emoticons).

[timetodienow1234567]

That's the difference. We think the coach should be held accountable in the playoffs and you said that the players will shoulder most of the blame. I disagree. I think if a coach trots out crap lineups and the team plummets the coach SHOULD be blamed.

[marvelman821]

That's the difference. We think the coach should be held accountable in the playoffs and you said that the players will shoulder most of the blame. I disagree. I think if a coach trots out crap lineups and the team plummets the coach SHOULD be blamed.

i agree. the coach should have a big part in the playoffs since he should have a lot of game planning involved and offensive and defensive plays ready at their disposal. then its the players turn to execute the plays. plus in the playoffs its all about matchups. mchale needs to do research on what works against the top teams based on the regular season. hopefully he can adjust lineups once the playoffs come.

 

right now we don't match up well to the thunder or clippers at all.

[rockets best fan]

@FSS

I gave McHale credit for a good season. however the playoffs are a different animal. while it's been a good season McHale has had his blunders along the way too, along with the players. there appears to be an environment where both the team and the coach are growing together. McHale must show he can respond to playoff pressure as much as the team (IMO).  last night was a reasonable start. while some may question his rotations last night.......I thought he showed a willingness to make radical changes trying to control the flow of the game. so even though we lost he gets a star on the progress report  I'm just not ready to say he's the man though

[thejohnnygold]

I'd like to point out that the Thunder and Clippers both enjoy a roster that has solid amounts of offense and defense--often in the same player.

 

The Clippers can trot out Jordan, Barnes, and Paul.  Griffin and Redick aren't chopped liver either.  That's a luxury few teams have with plenty of offense AND defense.

 

The Thunder have a similar luxury.  With Durant, Ibaka, Westbrook, Sefolosha, and Perkins they are solid on D 1-5.  I don't have to explain the offense part.

 

Comparatively, Houston has Dwight and Beverley.  Nobody else strikes fear into opposing offenses (Omer could, but his limited role right now negates that).  The problem is we struggle to blend offense and defense into one line up.  Jordan Hamilton may help with this, but that is a big question mark right now.  Garcia is also a question mark right now.

 

I'm not sure we can put a line up out there that can rival either of LAC or OKC in balancing offense and defense.  Would Harden, Garcia, Hamilton, D-Mo and Howard work?  That gives us size, with 2 perimeter defenders on defense.  On offense, the floor is spaced and a 2-man game with Harden Howard could keep the points coming....maybe.  That would create a bench unit of Bev, Lin, Parsons, Jones, and Asik.  Ideally, that bench unit would destroy....but this idea flips our line-ups on their head and simply isn't going to happen.

 

McHale has his work cut out for him as it seems he is constantly torn between choosing one or the other.

[Alituro]

8

 

Based on our record for 2014. I like how the players respond to him, his candor and his willingness to implement Morey's vision. I think he has some work to do with his in-game strategies and his ability to counter one team's mis-matches with his own. That is something that will take experience to learn, and he does seem willing and able to learn. He countered with small-ball last night but quickly abandoned it after a couple quick mis-cues, he should have rode it out a little longer and give the guys time to adjust. Also I don't think he is getting all he can out of Asik, even off the bench. Even though his own talents, offensively, are lacking he definitely opens up scoring ops for the other 4 on the floor. Also I don't think Westbrook could have continued bombing down the lane with Asik there to meet him. 

[BallSoHarden]

7-8. We've been playing great basketball lately and have beaten contenders, and come back to win or hold on in several games. I think in a 7 game series his basketball knowledge and championship experience will come in handy, like last year when we played OKC McHale decided to go small and switch to a zone defense that helped us push the series to 6 games, all fairly close after game 1. That being said I'd like for him to come up with some plays, defensive schemes and rotations for the players he has this summer, now that the roster has some continuity to it.

 

Also, one thing I like about McHale is he's a player's coach. His players look up to him and like him. Morey has put together a team of young guys who all typically get along and are friends and pull for each other. I think the personal part of a team is an underrated aspect. When you get in those long, close playoff series you need that extra push, and having a team that's like a family can be that. I think the Rockets could be like a college team, where you're not just playing a game but you're out there fighting for your teammates/friends/brothers and coach/father.

[Sir Thursday]

8.5, although this is for the coaching staff in general as I find it impossible differentiate between them and McHale himself in these things.

 

There was one thing that was more important than any other for the team this year, and that was learning to integrate Dwight into the offence. It was not an easy task and it didn't happen straight away, but when I compare the way the Rockets play now to how they did at the start of the year there is absolutely no comparison. There are three things in particular that I think the coaching staff have managed to implement over the course of the season that are particularly important and worthy of praise (because given the grind of the regular season implementing anything at all should be considered a success):

 

• Teaching the players how to lob the ball to Howard. There was a point in the season where after two or three days off the team suddenly started throwing lobs, and it was at that point that the offence really took off. I assume they had a dedicated session where they were asked to practice it. It has made a HUGE difference to the potency of the Rockets' offensive sets.
• Adapting both the Howard and the team to playing through the post. Purple patch aside, there are still some flaws in Howard's post game, but it is a huge improvement on where it as at the beginning of the season. He knows when to look for the open man if the double team comes and the rest of the team knows where that man should be. He is alert to cuts down the lane and the Rockets do them enough to keep the defence fairly honest. And Howard can deal with digging defenders much better too - he knows how to keep his movements from being predictable enough to steal from.
• Dialling down the late-game isoball. It's been a while since we've seen any 20 second dribble-to-horrible-look possessions from Harden at the end of games. In clutch situations the coaching staff now seems willing to put a bit more structure into the offence and it looks much better, even when it doesn't come off.

I'm not saying that the staff has executed any of these things perfectly, but that the team has shown sufficient improvement in these areas that I'm happy the coaching staff are doing a good job behind the scenes. Not a 10/10 job, but nevertheless a very commendable one that deserves a high mark.

 

In terms of in-game rotations, I'm not really sure where the criticisms of McHale's rotational inflexibility come from. To my mind he has actually been pretty good in this area. For example, going small late on in the Portland game made all the difference as the Rockets rode an unconventional Beverley-Lin-Harden-Parsons-Howard lineup to get back into the game, even as the Blazers played a huge frontline of Lopez-Aldridge-Batum in response. We've also seen him deploy the twin towers every now and again in the right matchups (it seemed like the right move against the Clippers, for example) and the activation of Garcia against the Thunder was a good one. I am satisfied with the flexibility that McHale has shown in this area.

 

ST

[timetodienow1234567]

Apparently mchale said that Noah should win DPOY. While I might not disagree, when you have Dwight and you say something like that, it doesn't seem to be very smart.