1. Heroics won't consistently win you games, team does. Remember Lebron's Cavs? Howard's Magic? Why Linsanity being that popular? Lin, frankly speaking, a potential young guy only, but he utilize team basketball to the perfect extent. 2. Wrong offensive strategy. Why the hell we need a point guard if everything is done by shooting guard. Reserves your energy for your job, scoring. Let PG does his job. (Coach's bad i guess, just defer to the best man you get!?). 3. Good defense so far if not outstanding. To be honest, we did more than okay in rebounding, steals, drawing charges. Not only the back court, but whole team including bench performed well. Only offense cause us the game lately. 4. Rookies being ignored for unknown reasons. Toney obviously would be gone soon, he's just not the deal. Why bother playing rookies when starters need rest and your rotation didn't look good. suggestions? 1. Give correct coaching to Harden and Lin. Harden is no doubt going to be a superstar. But, he's 23, he's got a lot to learn, let him know he's not even Lebron yet, so why asked him to do everything? Let the team play, let Lin create. Otherwise, the media, the expectations 'd kill you if not the fans. 2. Lin is not the same Lin we saw during Linsanity. Kinda like the one we saw with Melo and Amare. Just bring the ball up front and defer it. He obviously looked much more dangerous with ball in his hands. His defense is way above average though. 3. I understand rookies needed to be hungry. But competition improves the team. You got a young talented team, let the young guys compete. Being conservative won't do you any good in this way. Conclusion: McHale is having his full 82 game season the 1st time. It tells how inexperience he is compared to the other coached. While I appreciate the defensive end the team performed, that the monotonous offense system may cause him the job sooner if not later.
Wait....what? Lin? Defense "way above average"? Did you not see Lawson effortlessly drive by him time and time again?
Thats all you saw. I saw a Lin that forced Turnovers, stripped balls, stole ruthlessly, battled danilo gallinari 1 on 1 who was much taller - and WON. and tipped the ball to a teammate afterwards - and consistently was trying to feed the hot hands the ball.
Lawson 9-20, and you also missed the clutch fouls Lin inflicted saving the team and keeping us in that game. smh.
If it's that all you can see, there's no point to argue anyway. When any other fan can tell ya, hey, dude, Harden's got 6 TOs,2 ast,shooting 5/15, going ALL ME, ISO mode in clutch time and miss and TO. I can tell you he got 5 steals, important free flows in Q4, and clutch shots to bring us closer. But I appreciate both of them and give the credits where its due. One thing I can tell, Lin is off rhythm obviously, and he still hustle it, got 6 steals, 5 rebounds. Top 3 in steals end of season may be.
I'll say it... Lin didn't have the ball in his hands enough to outplay Lawson on the offensive end. Defensively, I thought Lin did a fine job on Lawson. It wasn't spectacular (like Iggy's defense on Harden was), but it was fine. I think people need to get a grip. I saw a play in the 4th quarter where someone tried to set a screen on Lin and then roll... Lawson came off the screen, Parsons (who was defending the screener) got up there so late that he actually ran straight into Lin (almost looked like he set a screen on Lin as well), which let Lawson go straight to the basket. I went to the game thread right after that and people were complaining about Lin getting blown by on the play. The Lin hate is strong.
Lin. Can't shoot Harden. Can't shoot with defense focused on him. Parsons. Can't shoot Asik. Can't shoot Patrick, inconsistent offensively.
Lin's a good defender, especially better than people give him credit for. One of the better PG defenders. A lot of it was on lack of help D, and Lawson is quick, one of the faster guards of the league but Lin held him off pretty good.
I saw that play and it was kinda odd. Chandler job was to slow down Lawson so Lin can catch up, but Lin was there already, instead he slowed down Lin so Lawson can go by. This is a young player mistake, I guess. They practice so much that they don't realize why they are doing that for, instead they are just going thru motions.
One player cannot stop a quick guard. This is where help defense comes in. That wasn't happening tonight. Lin isn't a great defender but he isn't as bad as people make him out to be. Meh wtv.
After 4 games, we have players in the top 5 in scoring, rebounds, steals and TOs. And this team is still fun to watch, for me anyway.
I like the analysis, so I'm quoting it bc the thread derailed. oh so quickly, too. I would add that Asik is hurting the offense a lot by being the PnR player that Lin relies on. That's 3-5 plays a game that should be easy buckets but are toss ups because of Asik's low shooting %. My guess is that Asik will fix those problems by mid season by learning how to jam with style. Also, Parsons should try PnR with Lin. He has more Bang than Asik does.
No we didn't see that. Did you see his defense on Lawson in the second half? On Galinari who is 7 inches taller?
Yeah Parsons basically helped setting a bigger screen on Lin for Lawson. The PnR defense in the 4th was very poor. Then they called a time out and went to switching on every PnR - It was total chaos.
I hope someone releases a video showing his 1 on 1 against Gallinari. He is turning into a great defender imo. I see improvement. People talk as if everyone in the NBA is locked into a singular stat. Once judgement is passed its done. I saw him grow leaps and bounds in defense this season thus far. 10 rebounds in a prior game. 6 steals, multiple turnovers caused, CLUTCH fouls, great help defense, he didn't over-commit and get bombed on from the 3pt line. He is GROWING before our eyes. People are missing out on the fact that one theme of yesterdays practice was DEFENSE. Lin's improving at a remarkable pace. Its game by game now.
He's in a major shooting slump which hopefully will end soon. He is shooting 90+% from the free throw line which indicates he is a good shooter. The good defense he is playing should be there night in and night out.
