Lin is a role player. He is what he is right now. He plays well some games, average other games, and terrible some games like last night. Harden is NOT a role player. He's a "franchise" player. To put the blame for a series on a Role player vs the Franchise players is just stupid. Before the series even started we acknowledged that it would be almost impossible to win this series if our Stars don't show up. Howard showed up. Harden didn't show up 3/4 games on the offensive end, and didn't show up for ANY games on the defensive end. Blaming Lin for the entire series is like loading an elevator with a bunch of overweight guys, then blaming the skinny guy that gets in last for snapping the cable. James Harden - The Play Offs round 1 110 points on 103 shots, 35% FG%, 26.8% 3pt%, 15 TO's and NO defense First 3 games of the play offs 82 points on 82 shots, 32.9% FG%, 23.3% 3pt%, 10 TO's and NO defense If I told you that was going to be Harden's stat line, what are the chances you think that we could win the first round of the play offs?
Harden is taking on the entire defense of Portland. He also has a lot to do with our success as opposed to Lin who has very little if any. Lin cant even bring the ball up court.
Couldn't wait for Rafer to get the hell outta here either.....but this is reaching epic proportions of Linstupidiy.
Can we have a do over on the Rondo trade? Did not wanting to get rid of Parsons really hold up the deal from happening? If so, epic epic fail.
we hate jeremy lin because of how up and down he is. sometimes he plays great, and sometimes he does this: game 3: 48 seconds left. up by 3. instead of killing the clock, he rushes up court to take a contested layup. next possession down, batum hits a 3. game 4: 24 seconds left, up 2. instead of killing the clock, he rushes up court to get ripped by mo williams, who ends up hitting a 3 on the same possession.
Harden's defense was pretty solid in game 2 and 3, it wasn't like Matthews did much of anything either. Games 1 and 4 though, meh.
Don't forget: Game 2: 30 seconds left. Down by 3. Instead of trying to play solid D and get the rebound with a chance to tie, Lin intentionally fouls and sends the Blazers to the line. They knock down both free throws and go up 5, ending any chance of forcing OT(which probably would've happened given that 4 of our last 5 games against Portland have ended that way).
Harden's a max contract player. That's his job, to take on the entire defense of the opposing team. You think LMA had any issue with taking on the defense of the Rockets on his shoulders? You can't ask that of Parsons, Lin or any other role player. You can ask that of Franchise players like Melo, Lebron, Dwight, etc. And the whole point of the regular season is to GET to the play offs. For "stars", success is measured in the play offs when there's REAL defense, not in the regular season when half the teams are crap and other teams are mailing it in. Lin played like crap last night. No argument there. However, the Series is on the shoulders of the Stars. And if the Star doesn't show up, that's on them. If the "franchise player" doesn't play well in the play offs, then by definition they ARE a failure that season. Last season the excuse was that Harden didn't have enough help to beat a team like the Thunder. Fair enough, we got Dwight to attract attention. What's Harden's excuse this year in the Play offs? There is none.
Calm down people, it's not like we were going to win it all this year. Chuck it up as learning experience and move on. Who knows, there are no ways but to go up for our players going forward.
I agree Harden has not played well, but he is the best offensive SG in the NBA. Lin is not even the 3rd best point guard on the team.
in Game 1 he also made 2-3 really bad mistakes near the end of the 4th that contributed to OT. No matter his (slight) redemption in that OT, or his heads-up play in OT of Game 3, he's made SIGNIFICANT errors towards the end of regulation in every single game.
This is actually how I feel about it. They weren't going to win this year, so losing like this may be the best thing to happen. It may mean they change coaches and be the impetus to getting rid of some players that don't fit.
That's an interesting analogy. If the skinny guy is the last to get on, reads the max weight capacity and sees that it's already full of overweight guys, then yes, I would blame him. Even the most minor part of a machine can cause a massive failure. For want of a nail the shoe was lost; For want of a shoe the horse was lost; For want of a horse the battle was lost; For the failure of battle the kingdom was lost— All for the want of a horse-shoe nail. -Unknown I'm in no way putting an entire game on Lin, but a single crucial play can be the difference.
Agreed, but was Lin the nail or the horse? Which means more? The lack of execution on the last 5 out of 90 possessions, or the first 85 possessions that put us in the position in the first place? Lin should have made a better decision, but should the Team have been in that position in the first place where the game came down to Lin scrambling for a rebound to save the series on a split second decision? This isn't about blaming or not blaming Lin for me at this point. I'm more concerned about how to fix the team. If we keep letting games come down to the final possessions and 60s to go, then crap is going to happen. The question is how do we NOT let it go down to the last 60s? So vent, blame whoever you want in the last 60s. It doesn't change that the preceding 47 minutes of the game set the table.
I would have agreed with this statement at the beginning of the playoffs, but the western conference is so wide-open now, I think the Rockets would have had a chance had they taken care of business. If you had shown me the current results of the other western conference series at the beginning of the playoffs, I think I would have been encouraged in our chances to win the west. However, this has been such a collective bedpooping in so many facets - general coaching, tactical coaching, defense, individual offense, leadership, resilience, late game decision-making and other intangibles. I am extremely disappointed in the Rockets' inability to raise their game for the playoffs.
