{"id":18897,"date":"2015-11-19T09:05:53","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T17:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/mchale-fired-by-rockets-after-4-7-start\/"},"modified":"2015-11-19T09:05:53","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T17:05:53","slug":"mchale-fired-by-rockets-after-4-7-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/mchale-fired-by-rockets-after-4-7-start\/","title":{"rendered":"McHale fired by Rockets after 4-7 start"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON<\/strong> \u2014 Six months ago, Kevin McHale coached the Houston Rockets to the Western Conference finals for the first time in 18 years.<\/p>\n

There are high expectations for the team again this season behind James Harden and Dwight Howard, but McHale won\u2019t be around to see where the Rockets end up: Houston fired McHale on Wednesday with the team off to a puzzling 4-7 start.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team was not responding to Kevin McHale and we had to make the tough call,\u201d general manager Daryl Morey said a few hours before the Rockets took a four-game skid into their game against Portland \u201cAnd we had to make it soon. There is not time in the tough Western Conference to wait for a turnaround.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the game, several players mentioned guilt and said they felt partially to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t see it coming, I\u2019m not going to lie,\u201d forward Corey Brewer said. \u201cWe are responsible. The coach can\u2019t make us play hard. That\u2019s up to us. This has got to be a wake-up call. We\u2019ve got to get better. Now, it\u2019s up to us to start winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three of Houston\u2019s losses were by 20 points and two others were by 12 or more points. Morey was asked what indications he saw that the team wasn\u2019t responding to McHale.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you just watch our team play and it\u2019s not that difficult (to see),\u201d Morey said. \u201cYou\u2019re a team coming off a Western Conference final run and you\u2019re a team with mostly the same group and it was not working. We will change until it\u2019s working. (Owner Leslie Alexander) does not accept losing. I do not accept losing. No one accepts losing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assistant J. B. Bickerstaff took over as interim head coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough because the only reason I\u2019m here is because of (McHale),\u201d said Bickerstaff, who said he was told about the decision shortly after 9 a.m. when preparing for shootaround. \u201cI\u2019m so thankful to him. I\u2019m hurt that he\u2019s not here, and I\u2019m hurt that I won\u2019t get to see him every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

McHale was in his fifth season with Houston and is coming off a 56-26 season where the Rockets fell to eventual champion Golden State in the conference championship. <\/p>\n

The 57-year-old Hall of Fame player went 193-130 with the Rockets.<\/p>\n

\u201cBottom line is we believe in this team,\u201d Morey said. \u201cWe believe in the players we have. We know this team can win. We know but we aren\u2019t in a good place and … we\u2019re going to make changes until we win.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rockets opened the season with three straight losses, then won four in a row before losing again. The same roster as a year ago added dynamic point guard Ty Lawson, but the team has not really gelled and McHale complained about the effort of the team and its sloppy play.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times, I wouldn\u2019t say full effort all the time, no,\u201d McHale said after a blowout loss to Boston in which Houston blew an early 15-point lead. \u201cThings aren\u2019t going our way and we hang our head. We haven\u2019t put together really good basketball all year long.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team had a players-only meeting on Tuesday to discuss the issues, something that encouraged Morey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not all about the head coach,\u201d Morey said. \u201cEveryone needs to look and figure out what to do better and I think the players were doing that (Tuesday) and I think it was positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

McHale spent his entire playing career in Boston after he was the third overall pick in the 1980 draft. The power forward helped the Celtics win it all in 1981, \u201884 and \u201886. The two-time NBA Sixth Man of the Year was named one of the NBA\u2019s 50 greatest players in 1996 and was inducted into the Hall in 1999.<\/p>\n

After his playing career, he spent several years as an executive with the Timberwolves before coaching the team for parts of the 2004-05 and 2008-09 seasons after coaches were fired. But his first real shot at coaching came when he took over the Rockets in 2011 from Rick Adelman, who had spent four years with the team.<\/p>\n

McHale helped the Rockets improve in his first season before Houston went 45-37 in 2013 and returned to the postseason for the first time since 2009. The Rockets lost in the first round of the playoffs that season, improved again in 2014 and returned to the postseason only to be eliminated in the first round again. The Rockets finally got over the hump last season, getting the second seed in the West.<\/p>\n

During their playoff run, the Rockets raved about how McHale was a player\u2019s coach. Harden said he was comfortable with him from the moment they met, adding: \u201cI felt like I was talking to an actual player.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

This story has been updated to correct Morey\u2019s first name to Daryl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2014 Six months ago, Kevin McHale coached the Houston Rockets to the Western Conference finals for the first time in 18 years. There are high expectations for the team again this season behind James Harden and Dwight Howard, but McHale won\u2019t be around to see where the Rockets end up: Houston fired McHale on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18897"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}