This thread reminds me of when Phil Garner was managing the Astros. Joe Morgan was announcing a game and said that Garner needed to call for a steal on a particular pitch. Garner didn't and it was a pitchout. Morgan said, "Garner really got lucky there".
isnt Motiejunas a good at shooting tho?..If i was a coach, i'll get a good shooter and tell him to drop his FT % for situations like this. the opposite team is always going to know whos' shooting the lowest % in the court, and foul him.
Aren't you supposed to be a statistician? Why in the world would you take the result as given after the fact without any regard to the process that led to it? That the play ended up working out in the end doesn't mean McHale was right. And then you attribute the Rockets record to McHale's coaching without any evidence... Based on your posts, I would have thought you had heard of attribution and outcome biases
This. DMo has been shooting the ball well during the month of February. Based on his current play it wasn't a bad decision when there isn't a clear better option.
The point I was attempting to make is that the Rockets are playing up to expectations. Do they have better talent than OKC, the Heat and the Pacers? I would argue no. Therefor it is hard for me to fault McHale as a coach. Did McHale have better lineup possibilities available? Perhaps. But a NBA game is not simable. You cannot run it 10000 times to compare the effect of different lineups on that inbound play. Did it optimally work out? Yes. Seasons are long. Trends take a long time to materialize. The argument has been made that the Rockets needed a big (D-Mo) who can every time get open on an inbound play. Is this argument correct? I do not know. But the Rockets have been playing great and seem to be peaking at the right time. They are within 2 games of the Spurs and actually could have a shot at the best record in the NBA this season. Unlikely though.
What's your point? If I remember correctly we were out of timeouts. Got to get the ball in to somebody. He made the free throws so again...what's your point?
This is so true. And I just want to add that McHale's coaching style has been to stick with something that is working. For 2 quarters nothing was working for the Rockets but in the 4th the Rockets started clicking again. McHale inserted JLin for D12 but was not going to insert someone that had not played a second for 2 straight games. He stuck with who got him back in the lead and DMo had been playing well and rewarded McHale with 2 points that basically sealed the game. It's not the 1st time this season that McHale stuck with DMo in the 4th and it's not the 1st time it paid off for the Rockets.
Haha. That'd be great to watch on youtube. Morgan always struck me a bit as Walton-esque, but unintentionally so
This is certainly an interesting play to analyze. Where was D-Mo on the inbound pass? Right up to the passer. It seemed like D-Mo was acting like a safety valve. He certainly was not going to be boxed out since he was by far the biggest player on the court. I am not sure that Daniels could bring equal worth on that play.
If they hadn't passed it to Dmo it would have been a turnover or a late inbounds call which would have given the suns the ball. A gutsy move that won us the game. If it was Howard, then yea...I would have been like wtf.
He's in the NBA. He needs to learn to be reliable at the FT line. There's nothing like practicing with the game on the line.
It was a terrible attempt at trying to get open by Harden and the rest of the guys. The demo is tall and if all else fails, you can throw the ball up highto him. That's what happened. The rest is history.
Lin was on the other far end of the court calling for the ball but the angle where he was - Lin just kept standing there - Dragic was in perfect position to try to steal the ball when it was in the air. Lin should have moved around as well making it more difficult for Dragic - it would have done two things 1) prevented DMo who was the statistically worse FT shooter on the court from receiving the ball and 2) lin could have dribbled it for maybe 1-2 seconds to run more time off the clock. DMo though has some stones and hit both. I blame Lin for just standing there on the opposite far end of the court in bad position - if you are going to be in the back court fine - its a smart tactic but if you are moving to make yourself open.
pippandagimp said "McHale should sub in Garcia for DMo". McHale didn't and DMo made the game clinching free throws. pippandagimp says "McHale got lucky that time".
End of thread with a small sidenote with ppl arguing about ft %'s - actually both Casspi AND Asik have better %'s than Dmo but like OMR said not this month.
