Just hours after the Houston Rockets fired head coach Kevin McHale, the Portland Trail Blazers blew a 17-point second half lead at the hands of James Harden to lose 108-103 to Houston in overtime.
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Before Wednesday’s overtime win over the Portland Trail Blazers, the Rockets had a 4-7 record, a bit surprising since they made it to the Western Conference Finals last season and were expected to contend this year.
“I was extremely surprised that McHale was let go”, Carlisle said before Wednesday’s game. “We just weren’t playing with any juice, with any rhythm”.
Unfortunately, we only got three rounds of Lynn’s assault of the Rockets as she soon deleted her Twitter account. We get out and run because we created so many turnovers a year ago.
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.
“He appreciated me reaching out to him, but I think he’s just going to lay low”.
Brewer drained a three-pointer with less than a second remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime with the score knotted at 99-99. With McHale out, J.P. Bickerstaff has taken over as the interim head coach, but that might not be a long-term solution, so other names have popped up as potential options, and one of those names is Tom Thibodeau, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo!
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey announced that the son of Bernie Bickerstaff, a long-time National Basketball Association coach, JB Bickerstaff will lead the Rockets for the rest of the season.
McHale, a Hall of Fame player, was hired by the Rockets before the 2011-12 season.
Rockets 38-year-old point guard Jason Terry got his first start of the season, replacing struggling guard Ty Lawson, who was acquired from Denver in the offseason.
“I don’t expect it; nobody expects this”, Carlisle said.
“It’s about leadership. It’s about sacrifice”, Bickerstaff said of Harden. Chandler Parsons, former Rockets player and now a Dallas Mavericks small forward, reportedly said that what a shame about Coach Mac. We’re a transition team and some of that stems from our defense. “So my ears are just locked in and focused in on what he’s saying”.
Thunder 110, Pelicans 103: Russell Westbrook had 43 points, nine rebounds and eight assists for host Oklahoma City.
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Rockets owner Leslie Alexander said he is disappointed in the team’s performance so far this season.
