Houston Rockets need to be more aggressive on defense says McHale
By Bryan Rose
The Houston Rockets had another fine regular season though their playoff run ended prematurely which didn’t sit well with head coach Kevin McHale.
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General manager Daryl Morey has already stated that he wants to bring in an additional All-Star talent alongside Dwight Howard and James Harden, but Houston’s head coach believes the team needs to be more aggressive on defense if they want to emerge as a bigger threat in the Western Conference.
“We have to be able to put more pressure on people,” McHale said. “We sat down as a staff afterwards and have been brainstorming all offseason. We’re going to have to put more pressure on the ball. We’re going to have to be more aggressive defensively. We’re going to have to probably trap and attack more defensively. We were all year long in the top five, six, seven in defensive field-goal percentage against. Our defensive rebounding has to pick up. Hanging in there and not trying to leak out will be huge for our wing guys.”
It’s a understandable sentiment from McHale as the Rockets faded defensively during the seasons final month and continued that stretch into the postseason.
Of course, when one of your premier offensive players (like Harden) is woeful on the defensive end, it’s not exactly easy to change the culture of your defensive scheme though it sounds as if the Rockets will do what they can to make the necessary adjustments.
One way is by moving away from Jeremy Lin, who despite some impressive offensive outbursts, is about as poor as they come on the defensive side of the ball.