I like this but McLemore over Rivers. Basically all the same reasons you mentioned except I think McLemore has way more of a quick trigger than Austin Rivers who is often hesitant on catch and shoot 3s. McLemore reminds me a lot of Gerald Green in that way. McLemore also seems to be one of the only guys who is willing to sprint down the court on the fast break with Russ.
Yes i thought about that. I chose Rivers because he is one of our better perimeter defenders. His ability to lock down the other teams best guard comes in handy during the playoffs. I'm also not sure if we can trust BMac in a high pressure playoff environment yet. I trust Austin to at least be able to defend his position. If Bmac can stay solid on the defensive end, then i would agree that his shooting would make that lineup pretty deadly.
So far the three lineups with 10+ minutes without Harden are: Rivers-Westbrook-Gordon-House-Tucker > 12 minutes, +2.5/100 poss Rivers-Westbrook-McLemore-House-Tucker > 12 minutes, -1.7/100 poss Rivers-Westbrook-Gordon-Sefolosha-Capela > 13 minutes, -8.6/100 poss Due to the Gordon injury, we haven't had a single "bench" lineup that's consistently out there in a sample size big enough for us to know much.
Best Harden-less line up is still in progress because Rockets do not yet have players that maximize Westbrook. Westbrook needs four long athletic 3-D wings around him that live run and gun. At least 2 of those players need to be rim protectors as well. House and McLemore are good start but need another guy, or three, over 6'6.
