It's times like this I think back to the Dream destroying David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O'Neal, etc one-on-one on both ends of the floor.
Ah, the good old days. When the MVP voters were stupid enough to make Dream angry and David Robinson had to pay the price. Woo!
Lin did fine on CP3 overall. 2 of Lin's first 4 fouls were phantom fouls. There was also an obvious flop CP3 was trying to sell off Lin that didn't get called. CP3 embarassed Lin 1 on 1 on a couple plays with some really nice handles which is probably all people remember, either that or they just looked at the box score and didn't watch the game. Lin was able to burn CP3 and get to the hoop several times but couldn't get going. You had that DeAndre Jordan bump on Lin in the air that somehow got called as a block. Lin also set up his teammates with a bunch of looks that didn't converted - everything from that no-look pass to Parsons that he couldn't catch to rollmen not being able to convert because they got hacked or couldn't make a layup. Most of CP3's assists came off dishes to shooters who were left wide open due to crappy perimeter defense. Harden was horrible offensively and defensively. Team defense was bad overall. But if you wanna target one reason why the Rockets lost, it would be perimeter defense on shooters, especially Harden and Parsons letting Redick and Dudley go off in the first, creating a 17 point deficit.
On any given night teams can lose and get blown out. The Sixers beat Miami and had a great first week only to be thumped by the Warriors. The same Warriors who also blew out the Lakers and lost in similar fashion to the Clippers. The same Clippers who lost the opener to the Lakers. It happens, just pull up your boots and move on. These guys are no different than the thousands of knee jerk reactions that get posted on here, they just get paid for it. Lin put up 14 and 8, which is par for him and he did it dealing with foul trouble. AB was 3-5 for nine points and 4 rebounds. We equaled them in steals and we out rebounded them. We also only had 15 turnovers and scored 118 points. On most nights against most teams, that's a win. When the other team shoots more shots with a better fg% than you and you can only shoot 28% from your bread and butter 3pt line, it's not going to be a good night. My only caveat to this is two things. I don't give a flying crap about how bad they are beating you, you have to give some kind of effort on defense. When I see a guard beating you on an underneath screen by the basket and you don't even make an attempt to get to them and just stand there, that is not championship basketball. When you aren't blocking out for rebounds that's lazy ball that get's you knocked out of the first round. That's on the entire team. Second is Howards free throw shooting, at this point he is what he is, but I still don't like it. Kudos for Asik hitting his last night.
Heh...you underestimate CP3's world renowned acting. That's cute Someone should just record each foul called on Lin and post it for us to dissect.
nah bev is da supaman who inherit the ancient phasing skill which take advantage of mini worm hole in our universe, teleporting every millisecond and enable him stay in front of cp3 and JJRedick at the same time.
the best way to "slow him down" is to try to do everything to match his stats. I know you can't. what about to get half of his stats, meaning he scores 10 pts and you score 5 pts.... to stop him or slow him down by defense? it's extremely hard, just like ppl talking about slowing down dream. no way.
Huge overreaction, we had to lose at some point. Plus I'm surprised they don't talk about how the Clippers team is built for the regular season but that type of basketball will not work in the playoffs, teams are not going to score 130+ points a game. Or the fact that the refs took Howard out of a complete half of a game, and a gave CP3 any call he asked for. But it's whatever we gon whoop them next time.
Usually Harden and Lin are pretty average defenders, but Harden last game wasn't even trying. It also didn't help that CP3 was lighting up the floor. Having Beverley back will help most definitely in the future but Harden on defense needs to be addressed.
Harden and Parsons need to step up for sure. Even if Lin played better D, a PG like Chris Paul will find his man open, like the ones that Harden and Parsons were guarding. Chris Paul goes off against top defenders all the time, thats what good PGs do. Lin can improve his D, but putting it all on the PG spot doesnt make sense.
Also should add from my comment above....alot of CP3's assists came off passes to redick and others who were wide open due to Harden and Parsons. That's not Lin's fault, especially if you play good D against CP3, hes going to find an open man. Its a team effort, and it was lacking.
Ok, I went to NBA.com and found the "on court/off court" stats as regards Lin for his career. I will be talking about whether or not he was a "Plus Defender"/"Minus Defender" in terms of how his team's Defensive Rating was when he was on or off the court. The "Net Positive"/"Net Negative" refers to if the team's Net Rating (ORTG - DRTG) was positive or negative when Lin was on the court. Meaning, if the (Net Rating Lin On Court - Net Rating Lin Off Court) is positive or negative. Here's what I found: 2010-11 Golden State Warriors * Lin = Plus Defender * Lin = Net Positive "On Court" rating 2011-12 New York Knicks * Lin = Plus Defender * Lin = Net Positive "On Court" rating 2012-13 Houston Rockets * Lin = Minus Defender * Lin = Net Negative "On Court" rating 2013-14 Houston Rockets * Lin = Minus Defender * Lin = Net Positive "On Court" rating Now, let's talk about these stats. There are three "negative" stats above. Both of the 2012-13 stats, and one of the 2013-14 stats. As I have said maybe 1,000,000 times here on ClutchFans, Lin wasn't healthy for some of last year. Or, to be more exact, his knee wasn't full speed for a portion of the year. McHale and others have said the same thing. And I have told people who didn't see Lin in New York that you were not seeing the same guy last year. The stats seem to confirm that assessment. Basically, Lin was a poor facsimile of himself last year. People thought they were getting Linsanity, but instead they got Bust-sanity and Knee-sanity. And let's be honest, Lin still had a ton of holes in his game (and still has plenty now). Now, turn to 2013-14. "On Court" rating is positive, but he's looking like a "Minus Defender," as Lowe apparently pointed out. However, in a quick glance of the team's Defensive Rating as compared with Lin's Defensive Rating by game, it appears he was a Plus Defender (I would have to do more examining to confirm this) UNTIL he played the Clippers last night. And then he had a 145.9 DRTG. That will blow up your stats. The summary is, then, that I'm not sure it's fair to say at this point that Lin is a definitive "Minus Defender" for his career, at least based upon this evaluation. His first two years he appeared to be a Plus Defender. Then he blew up his knee and was poor for a good portion of last year. But he started this year well on defense, until Chris "I Own The Soul Of The Universe" Paul went to work. So, we need to see more data, I think. Now, there are probably other (and maybe better) ways of looking at whether or not a player is a Plus Defender or a Minus Defender, but on quick examination over Lin's career using this metric, I'm not sure it's fair to label him a "Minus Defender" based upon last year's performance on a gimpy leg. You can see the data I was looking at here: http://stats.nba.com/teamOnOffSummary.html?TeamID=1610612744&Season=2010-11 http://stats.nba.com/teamOnOffSummary.html?TeamID=1610612752&Season=2011-12 http://stats.nba.com/teamOnOffSummary.html?TeamID=1610612745&Season=2012-13 http://stats.nba.com/teamOnOffSummary.html?TeamID=1610612745&Season=2013-14 I will say this: If you were just looking at last year's data as regards Lin and Beverley, you would choose Beverley over Lin, also. But that ignores the rest of Lin's career, and does not take into account his recovery from the knee surgery.
Strange. Morey said we were top 5 defense with Asik on the floor last season. We have everybody back and added all-world defensive center Howard. And all of a sudden defense is our "obvious flaw"?
If someone isn't around to help make up for Harden's subpar defense, it becomes apparent to everyone, which is what happened last night. Parsons is an average defender, but in general seems to have slightly regressed from last season. A lack of effort from both made Redick & co look good, which in turn made Paul look fantastic (which made the apparent disparity between him and Lin greater than it actually is). Sampson can chew Lin out all he wants, but he played expected, and a lot of people underperformed.
In a 1-game sample size, our defense was the obvious flaw. I guess no one actually watched games 1, 2, and 3 because it seems no one was pointing out how Harden can't defend a chair back then.
BB Actually it was perimeter defense for one game. In the NFL they say any competent QB can pick apart the defense if he isn't under pressure. And the greatest defensive backs in the world can't stay with receivers if the QB has all day to throw. Same goes for the guy initiating the play in basketball. Anyone remember when the Rockets used toss it down to Dream in the post? One way to slow down Dream was to get in the entry passer's face and make it tougher on him to get the ball to Dream....Teams used to try that all the time. That's what made Robert Horry such a luxury...
