Rockets fire McHale
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’t be around to see how the Rockets fare: Houston fired McHale on Wednesday with the team off to a 4-7 start.
“The team was not responding to Kevin McHale and we had to make the tough call,” general manager Daryl Morey said a few hours before the Rockets ended a four-game skid with a 108-103 overtime victory over Portland. “And we had to make it soon. There is not time in the tough Western Conference to wait for a turnaround.”
Three of Houston’s losses were by 20 points and two others were by more 12 or more points. Morey was asked what indications he saw that the team wasn’t responding to McHale.
“I think you just watch our team play and it’s not that difficult” to see, Morey said. “You’re a team coming off a Western Conference finals run and you’re a team with mostly the same group and it was not working. We will change until it’s working.
“We win at the Rockets. (Owner Leslie Alexander) does not accept losing. I do not accept losing. No one accepts losing.”
Assistant J. B. Bickerstaff will be the interim head coach.
McHale, 57, was in his fifth season with Houston and is coming off a 56-26 season in which the Rockets fell to the eventual champion Warriors in the conference finals. He went 193-130 with the Rockets.
McHale spent his entire playing career in Boston. The power forward helped the Celtics win it all in 1981, ‘84 and ‘86. He was named one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players in 1996 and was inducted into the Hall in 1999.
Briefly: San Antonio guard Manu Ginobili is missing two games with hip tightness. ... Charlotte forward Marvin Williams was fined $15,000 for elbowing New York forward Lou Amundson in the head. ... Dallas forward Charlie Villanueva left the team for the birth of his second child.