ChokeFasncists wrote:^
13th Man wrote:Thanks for the video but could've been coach's order from the bench, will have to wait to hear what they say.
Any news?
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZyKL3--MzM[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Zo_Gd2OPk#t=15[/youtube]
*Changing my stance after viewing all of the facts*
I think these 2 videos explain what happened.
Video 1 was from the timeout at about the 1:00 mark. Howard and Harden offers to be on the inbound defender but McHale said no, and to "stay with your guy". I am assuming by "stay with your guy", this means to keep defending who you were defending before, not as in "stick to your guy for the entire play". I've come to this conclusion because McHale mentioned in the post-game conference about switching everything, which was standard protocol earlier in the season when we got burned by Steve Blake and the Lakers. I am not sure if they players still intended to switch, to be fair to them, the double-screens were being formed by the Blazers but it didn't look like it got the chance to fully materialize as Lillard outwitted everyone by jumping the gun taking off like a rocket catching Chandler and everybody by surprise.
So when they come out of the timeout, Harden orchestrates the switcheroo and they all agree to it where Parsons is now on Lillard's instead of Pat Beverley, this last second decision obviously goes against McHale's instruction during the TO to stay with your man. What this shows me that it's the players that get to dictate how things play out on the court. Video 2 sort of confirms this imo, when asked about Parsons matching up with Lillard, notice how McHale answers, "Yeah, THEY matched up over there and....".
Another interesting fact is that Lillard mentioned to reporters that the Rockets were still not sure if they should switch or not coming out of the timeout and I think he took advantage of the confusion.
So when they play actually occurs, you have
1) Parsons on Lillard, which was supposed to be Beverley.
2) Now all the switching stuff doesn't matter that much anymore because what I believed happen was that Lillard took everyone by surprise especially Parsons by taking off running while the double-screen was being set up.
From what I see, the double-screen never fully materializes, Lillard just made a brilliant play amidst the confusion by Rockets players. He saw that they were still talking and trying to formulate the play last second so decided to go with a "Screw this, see you later guys!" move. That was brilliant imo and left the entire Rockets team dumbfounded. I think this was all Lillard, Chandler and the rest were waiting for the screens to be executed, and this was also the reason why he was shocked and got such a late start on Lillard.