ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Wizards 1/11/2014

Lin is developing a better left hand and is getting better at defending the ball from a blitz. Made some good passes tonight. Monster game from Jones though. If he can just play some better defense and develop a shot his potential is through the roof.

 

They should be clotheslining Lebron or doing shoryukens on Kevin Durant if we were to follow that statement to its logical conclusion.

 

Nah he was reaching for the ball but if he wasn't that would of been a technical

 

So we got Boston next Mchale's old stomping grounds

 

They hung with Portland tonight and made things difficult for GSW last night, so I hope we don't underestimate.

 

Lin plays good--->LOFs open fire
Lin plays bad---->LOHs open fire

People should just leave Lin alone and just enjoy the game of basketball.

 

People do try and clotheslines Lebron. The problem is the dude is so friggin big and fast that most of the time he just powers through and still finish.

 

It would be easy to spot them. Just look at the join date. Benefits of a new year.

 

That's a good point. McHale wanted to start Dragic over Lowry but Lowry is a much better player. So I guess the current situation isn't unprecedented :grin:

It is false. In a league with 30 starting PG's Lin would barely miss the top 10. He would be somewhere between 11-15 depending on the system. If that is mediocre then just about every player is mediocre.

Durant tends to avoid contact when possible so it's hard to get him in that situation. And Lebron? There aren't many people that can handle him physically and it's why he's the best in the league.

 

No they shouldn't.

I agree the LOF's and the LOH's should tone it down but people shouldn't leave Lin alone. I was of the opinion that Lowry should be the starter when he backed up Brooks and pointed out the good things he did, some people disagreed and had a different opinions. I did the same thing for many Rocket players in the past, even ones I was wrong about. I think Lin is a very good player and I'm glad he is on Rockets. Just because some people are extremist doesn't mean I'm just going to drop him from the discussion. The extremist should drop Lin from discussion or try to have a more balanced view, but Rockets fans should keep discussing Lin whether they like him or not, just like they would any other player.

You saw tonight how well the Rockets played in the second quarter, that is how they play when they are at their best. They play that way when Lin is in the game with the starters and pushing the ball for the most part. I think this is what the Rockets need to strive to be like, something like last year. I think it was Mchales mistake to try and change things up to much.

Lin may not be a good fit on all teams as a starting point guard,but he is a good fit on a running team. Hopefully Mchale will look at what the Rockets are doing when they play at there best and realize he made a mistake by trying to change them team up to much. They are better than last year but they have also played worse than last year, if that makes any sense. The Rockets should be a lot better just by adding Howard (what a great player).

 

I beg to differ - 2 additions are due:
You need to mention Casspi (best % from all ranges and hard D - why wasn't he used more?)
and of course Harden (the clutch save, together with TJ)

 

Yes, for feeding the troll. Stop replying and they'll just look stupid spewing hate that people ignores.

 

Didn't catch the game.

Rockets had a very strong first half and gave up the lead big time (and even lost it at one point) in the 2nd quarter. That is not excusable at all and I hope McHale gives a severe verbal beating on the team for that.

That being said, the last 20 pages were a total **** fest. Kind of glad the bans were being given out because some of these accusations towards the admins and moderators were down right sad.

Could not get an ounce of analysis with all these Lin-centric arguments.

 

Actually they lost the lead late in the 4th quarter!

 

Rockets built up the lead in the 2nd quarter through the 3rd quarter. They started losing the lead quickly with like 2 or 3 minutes left in the 3rd. It was a snowball effect of ticky tack calls against us, bad turnovers leading to fastbreaks for them and bad ISO jumpshots.

 

So in your LOH opinion Lin shot less than 50% and missed 3's so he had an OK game, but Wall shooting 8-22 (36%) is "going off". Give me a break.

Lin got 18 points on 11 shots on 45% shooting, that's 1.63 points per shot, which is extremely good. Wall too basically double the amount of attempts to score 5 more points. Statistically Lin outplayed him.

 

Taking 22 shots to get 23 points is what gets Melo and Gay crucified by the critics.

 

Also, I think people should realize that with Asik, we're playing with a -$8 million handicap against other contenders. Right now, he's just taking up bench and cap space while providing nothing in return. With that in mind, we're doing relatively well. Once we put an actual contributor in his place, the team should look better.

 

Wall is like Gay also, can generally get his shot relatively easy and is pretty good at bricking them too. Melo is no bastion of efficiency, but his somewhat lower TS% is somewhat offset by his really low turnover ratio. Wall is going to get past Lin, really he's going to get past anyone, it sort of annoys me that the coaches don't use a minimisation strategy. They need to just accept there are players that some of your defenders have no hope of keeping in front of, and instead make sure they go around into set rotation strategies.

 

Wall has elite athleticism and is a decent playmaker but he's not near elite imo. Really don't think he's worth max money. He's always been a mediocre shooter and his efficiency is terrible. He takes nearly 17 shots per game to score 20, and at a low .417% FG.

His PER and numbers are all just the product of volume and high usage, putting up big numbers on a bad team. Wall has higher usage than even James Harden and is 5th in PG usage. You're gonna get pretty stats with that much control of the ball.