The Houston Rockets have fired Kevin McHale, the coach told ESPN's Chris Broussard on Wednesday.
The news was earlier reported by Yahoo! Sports. Assistant J.B. Bickerstaff will serve as interim coach.
The Rockets are 4-7 this season, including a current four-game losing streak that prompted a players-only meeting at the Toyota Center on Tuesday morning. The Rockets have failed to reach 100 points during their losing streak, and are averaging 20 fewer points in their losses overall this season.
"We're hanging our head," McHale said after the Rockets lost to the Boston Celtics on Monday. "Things aren't going our way and we hang our head. Bottom line, we haven't put together really good basketball, all year."
McHale, in his fifth season with the team, was in the first year of a three-year extension worth more than $12 million that he signed last December. He was coming off an 82-56 season where the Rockets reached the Western Conference finals for the first time since 1997.
McHale was hired before the 2011-12 season by the team. He was 193-130 overall with the Rockets, including three straight trips to the playoffs. The Rockets had improved every season under his tenure going into this season.
Reaction started to come in quickly after the news broke, including a pair of strongly worded tweets from Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.
