ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Celtics 1/13/2014

LIN (chronicle) 1-14-2014

“I think we need to be more cold-blooded as a team,“We need to put teams away, not let them come back.”

 

i am not enjoying our style of play.
harden needs to quit dribbling and play D.
the whole team needs to D up.

 

Harden's D was fine last night. Bradley was on fire for a while but cooled off.

 

like all things in life, it's most likely somewhere in between.

these are basketball players, not soldiers. they do not always do what they are asked or ordered to do. not lin, not harden, not anybody. they do MOSTLY what is asked of them and even then, when the pressure is on, often revert back to what they're comfortable with, especially as young players and young teams, such as the rockets.

lin's disappearance (i personally think that's a loaded word) is not solely due to him, but at the same time, not solely due to coaching strategy. how many times have we heard mchale talk about moving the ball, pushing the pace? a lot. so obviously this is the way that he wants to play. and we've seen that in spurts but not as consistent as last year, and that's mainly due to dwight. it takes 5 guys to execute, not just jeremy doing his thing or mchale ordering the players to play a certain way.

and i'm sure the team likes to play that way because it's effective but you can't just decide "hey that's how we want to play" and flip on the switch. you have to figure out how to play your style against different defenses and that comes with experience. when the pace is up, jeremy shines because it suits his game. but he needs to learn how to play a slower pace half court game more effectively because those games will come.

having dwight changes the whole dynamic of the offense and it's up to the players to figure out exactly how to incorporate him into the offense while retaining their identity from last year, and that takes a while.

we will have more games where the pace is slow and the ball gets sticky. it's bound to happen. but hopefully, we'll see this type of play on a more consistent basis going forward.

 

:grin:This just made me laugh, thanks

 

Great win. We pretty much dominated mostly.

Rockets should continue utilizing Dwight.. alleys, post up, etc.

TJones double-doubles are welcome every game.

Casspi is playing well.. shooting, driving, decent defense and rebounding.

Rockets only 11 TOs. Lin had 9 asts with 1 TO. Great ratio plus he shot well.

 

He has always rebounded his position fairly well, always been a passer, etc.

The defense was nice to see though.

 

Two things I can take away from this thread. We played very well last night and Clutch is really annoyed with the Lin fan conspracists

 

1. I am not entirely sure that the Celtics are "tanking" given that they did resort to hack-a-Howard in the 4th quarter. Why do that if you are not trying to win. But I do think that there seem to be other competing priorities given the way the Celtics used some of their guys. Seems that some of the guys were getting minutes to either give them experience/development opportunities, evaluate them for future purposes, or possibly showcase them for trades. Why did Faverani suddenly make an appearance in the 3rd quarter after not playing in the 1st half, for example?

2. I don't understand how McHale talking about Lin having pushed the pace vs. the Celtics is construed as a role change or strategy change. The coaches and the front office have always wanted the team to push the pace. They were ranked 1st in pace last season and 8th this year. They have always talked about pushing the ball up the court quickly and had everyone, from Lin, Beverley to Parsons, Jones and Casspi, do it.

McHale simply praised Lin for doing what is their game plan all along.

 

oooo, my turn! do me now! do me!



i know exactly how that sounds.

 

Sounds like you want clutch to make sweet love to you and you know it o.o

 

Man I feel bad for Clutch. He shouldn't even need to respond to those posts.

 

Bayless is the new guy, so must not have gotten the memo!

 

I think most of the problems come from labeling people and trying to lump them into two groups. A lot people assume that the people who don't like Mchale(Their are a lot) as coach are LOF's because they see Mchale as holding Lin back. In reality their are only a small number of members who troll in favor of Lin, just like their are a small amount of people who troll against him.

I myself have been very critical of Lin and I don't like Mchale as head coach. As much of a good guy as he seems, the die hard Rockets fan that I am wants someone more qualified for the position. Even though the things I have just said are true I have been accused of being an LOF, someone told me to "Go back to the Knicks forum" which is hilarious because even when I lived in New York I was a die hard Rockets fan born and raised in Houston but somehow since I said something good about Lin and negative about Mchale I became an LOF.

I was also once called an LOH and a racist because I created a thread that questioned Lins ability as a starter last year. Even though I lived in Asia for several years and I love Japan sometimes more than America and refer to it as home out of habit someone who doesn't know me labels me a racist, it's stupid. My point is sometimes things are not as simple as black or white, there's a lot of gray area and all this LOF vs LOH stuff confuses everyone tempers flare and the entire board suffers.

 

The problem with McHale is very simple. Do you see the Rockets win a championship with him at the helm? If the answer is no, as a fan, you want him replaced asap.

 

They are all correct. You are a racist/Asian/McHale hater-sympathizer/LOF/LOH.

 

Man, I'm a busy guy. I thought I was tired from work and school, but now I know it's Clutchfans, lol.

 

yes pls

 

Dude as a fan of Lin, no matter what your join date, your survival rate goes way down if you challenge Clutch. Lin had a decent game and did you see how short the game thread was? As Karolik would put it much of the evil here has been purged.

But getting back to the game, are we all just going to ignore how bad the Celtics were? Glad the Rockets had fun but the average team is going to be faster as well as stronger in the paint. Let's see what the mood is like Thursday night after the doubleheader.

 

I toyed with starting up "The Great Purge of January" as a topic but things have seemed so much more pleasant and respectful lately (for the most part) that I didn't want to tempt fate.