Golden State Prevents Houston From Braking Three-Point Record

“We’re not going to lay down.”

These are the words of a frustrated coach whose team was not only dominated in their game against Houston, but who also made it a point to prevent the raging Rockets from breaking the record of three-point shots made (23) in a single game by any means necessary.

“I’m an old school basketball player and an old school coach,” said Mark Jackson right after his team’s self-destructive demise.  “If you can’t appreciate that, that’s on you.”

While normally it would be acceptable for a coach to make these statements in relation to the entirety of the game, the notion of using this sentiment to prevent a team from breaking a record as opposed to playing tough from beginning to end is frankly hypocritical.

If you’re a coach that plays balls to the wall and doesn’t believe in backing down and letting a team have their way with you then that’s fine.  However, if that is your coaching philosophy then where was this aggressive athletic gusto throughout the rest of the game?

What happened to that merciless fervor after your perimeter defense gave up 14 three-pointers in the first half alone? Why would you wait until your team was humiliated by this Harlem Globe Trotters performance by the Houston Rockets to instill this type of attitude?

If the game were close, then I could accept and tolerate this borderline animalistic ferocity.  But if your only drive and reason for playing this aggressively is to prevent a team from attaining a record which has no statistical bearing on how adept a team is from game to game, then you may want to rework your intangible strategy.

Make no mistake, I am all for teams playing their hearts out and doing what they have to regain morale rather than simply give up regardless of the circumstances.  However, when your childish, sore losing antics become the forefront for how your team conducts themselves on the court, it is simply a display of unprofessionalism and disrespect.

While Mark Johnson has done an exemplary job of helping Golden State rise from the ashes as a relevant and competitive team in the western conference, he needs to be able to shrug off the tough losses.  If he wants to retain the ideology of playing hard and using aggressive persistence to succeed then that’s acceptable and understandable.  However, if he choses that as his go to tactic then he needs to employ it throughout the entirety of the game and not just when the situation gets completely out of hand.