Has Patterson been playing rushed in the post like he did all the time last year? Or has he slowed that and became more effective?
I was responding to the assertion that the major reason for Lin's impressive on/off defensive numbers is because he played with Chandler, and wasn't making a point of whether Lin or Shumpert was the better defender. But since you want to go there, you're right, based on the eye test, Shumpert is the superior man-on-man defender. Synergy also affirms this, Shumpert only let up 0.69 PPP to Lin's 0.92 PPP in isolation situations. However, those only account for ~20% of the number of plays that they defend, and an even smaller percentage of plays that the entire team defends when they are on the court. The defensive things that Lin does well are drawing charges and getting steals, ie, getting the other team to turn the ball over. Out of all guards who played 20+ games and 25+ MPG last season, Lin was 6th out of 82 in charges drawn per 40 minutes, and 7th out of 82 in steals per 40 minutes.
Since I did follow Lin closely with the Knicks, I can say with confidence is that Lin is an above average defender, especially for the PG position. He might get beat off the first step, but he recovers so quickly, often forcing either a contested shot or a pass. (If there was a stat for forcing perimeter air balls one on one, Lin would be near the top. He's difficult to score on straight up.) That said, Lin's defense in the Rockets training camp clips has not looked impressive. Players generally don't defend as well in practice, but Lin got beat pretty bad on several plays, something out of character relative to how he played defense with the Knicks. But on the other hand, the Rockets do have a players who can defend..... The question is whether McHale can mold these players to play team defense. This could be the key whether the Rockets surprise this season.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Carlos Delfino<a href="http://t.co/93VxFons" title="http://instagr.am/p/Qc9McXQaWb/">instagr.am/p/Qc9McXQaWb/</a></p>— Randy Garcia (@rgarcia_9900) <a href="https://twitter.com/rgarcia_9900/status/254663048323809281" data-datetime="2012-10-06T19:22:56+00:00">October 6, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> look at TJ
