A LOF pretending to be a LOH pretending to be an Olajuwon fan? How did you figure that out? Impressive
in the 4th quarters and OT, harden is heavily guarded and howard doesnt post up cuz he cant hit FT's. bev isnt a creator and parsons isnt a ball handler. lin is forced to produce. this explains why he does so well when harden doesnt play and at the end of games. he is the de facto #1 option so he doesnt hesitate and plays aggressive. even that TO occurred when he was driving to the rim, being aggressive.
I have to admit I was surprised after watching the replay that Lin didn't lob to Howard. Lillard had to make a super athletic play to deflect the ball. But then again, Lin sees Daniels shooting every day in practice...maybe he was going with the odds
Lin said in the interview, his first option was to throw it to dwight but he saw that there where 2 white shirts running towards dwight thats why he threw it to daniels instead....
This is where I think "Moreyball" is horribly flawed.... In our system, a well-defended layup or three point shot is better than an open 15-20 foot two point shot. This leads us back to Lin... One of the shots he made in OT of Game 3 was a fallaway 18-foot jumper, in which he created space off the dribble. A play a little overlooked relative to some of the other plays late in the game. This was one of Lin's signature plays with the Knicks, but mostly abandoned here. (After he made that shot, I told those watching the game with me that it was a "signature Lin-of-the-Knicks play".) But again, it was an open shot. Which doesn't happen often late in playoff games. This is where Jeremy Lin can be so dangerous, because he was still able to create his own shot in the cauldron of overtime in a close playoff game. (Lin made a couple bank shots in Game One, which were also "Knicks plays". But in Game Two, Lin's "Knicks" game was nowhere to be seen.) If the coaches give Lin more leeway in his midrange game, I truly believe he can shock the world again, just like he did in New York.
im really glad you clarified this. After reading your first comment I jumped out of my chair and yelled outloud, "RIDICULOUS, it was clearly a 12 footer." I was in the process of writing a rant about said comment, but thankfully you posted fast enough.
I know, I was surprised by how calm Lin was and how easy he made that jumper look. That play also confirmed all the reports of what a terrible defender Lillard is. We need to go after him as much as possible.
Absolutely unbelievable that people are defending Lin for the decision to go for the layup (regardless of it being in or not). It indicates a lack of an understanding of late-game management in basketball by these players. If you look at win probability, when the Rockets were up by three late, the win probability increases the closer the clock gets to 0:00. Therefore, it's in the best interest of the Rockets to possess the ball as long as possible. The basic logic is the Blazers cannot tie the game if they don't have the ball. The quickest way to let POR have the ball is by either turning it over or shooting and them inbounding or getting a rebound. Anyone here watch football? There's a reason why the team that leads late in the game never throws deep passes (even if the WR may be open) because of any chance of an interception or incomplete pass that would stop the clock. This is why teams run the ball. They have an extremely high chance of not turning the ball over and can drain clock. Again, the win probability increases every second while you have possession.
This is the defacto answer. I even made a gambling analogy to explain why you don't take risks like these even if the reward was great. Also, it would have allowed for us a decent look for a shot, increase our chance to rebound the ball thereby increasing our chances of draining the clock even more. The third thing would be that our defense in transition would most likely be ready to defend the quick three.
So I'm not sure the football analogy works here. Football doesn't have a shot clock that forces a possession switch, but I get your point. However, in this particular situation, you are looking at a 1 possession game under 1 minute. If this was a multiple possession game, absolutely agree you wear down the clock, but this was a 1 possession game. In this case, if running down the shot clock produces a lower % shot and portland is guaranteed to have a shot on the other side, why wouldn't you go for it? From a defense perspective, there was no transition. The other 4 Rockets players didn't even pass half court yet and every Blazers player was closer to the Blazers slide. In fact, if you look at the rewind, the video clearly shows that rockets were pretty much set on defense. Only thing that makes sense for why you don't go for that layup is the possibility that we get an offensive rebound. But again, I don't know if that's huge enough a swing to call Lin's decision an error. You can say he executed badly though.
except its not. I don't think it is the greatest play in the world but 50 secs is alot of time in the NBA. Using your football analogy, how many times have you see teams in football try to run the ball too early in a game to run down clock, thinking they won, trying to be safe and it backfires.
I don't see how this is still being debated. The best play would have been to pull it out and drain the clock. What Lin did wasn't terrible or bad, it just wasn't the best possible play. Up 3 if we just milk the clock then Portland gets the ball down 3 with 32-35 to go. Even if they do tie it like they did, at the very worst we are getting the absolute last shot with the game tied, which is a better situation then what we ended up having.
This is very simple. It was a high risk high reward attempt. And it didn't work out. Props to Lin for having the stones to try it. But the percentages say to milk the clock there. I won't hate on the kid because his hustle play at the end was huge. Then again I'm not into hating on ANY of our players, regardless of the four or five threads people are piling on the last few days.
No reason to cry over spilled milk. Jin took the chance and he missed the layup, and it did not cost us the game. Also lin didn't make Batum hit the three so there is that. The onus is on lin to make that layup if he does that again.
