He's deferring to Harden either because coaches want him to (he and Harden have similar skills but Harden is way better than him at them) or because he doesn't have confidence in his shot yet... or he wants to pass and be a real pg. Mentally, I think he's a better playmaker than Harden. When Harden's looking for his shot and not making them, it's painful to watch. Maybe he needs to prove he's the man or that's what coaches want him to do because he's the best player. I dunno.
look at those handles.. wow, the biggest knock on ab was he wasnt a pass first guy, but he was never scared of the situation, and could score at will. he was a very, very poor mans iverson, again, extremely poor version.. but the kid could ball.. Brooks (last 3 gms: 28.7 mpg, 14 ppg, 71% FG, 8-13 3Pt, 3 apg, 1.7 spg)
No idea what you were expecting. 2nd game of a back to back, against OKC in OKC, coming straight from a funeral. Not to mention that Parsons did NOT play, taking out one of our key offensive options. Lin - 6 points, 3/7, 8 assists, 3 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 TO Westbrook - 14 points, 6/15, 9 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, 5 TO As for the REAL reasons we lost this game... Daequan Cook - 18 points, 7/17, 4 assists, 1 steal, 3 TO James Harden - 17 points, 3/16, 3 assists, 1 steal, 3 TO Marcus Morris - 7 points, 2/8, 1 assist, 1 steal, 2 TO Toney Douglas - 0 points, 0/4, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 TO Serge Ibaka - 23 points, 11/13, 6 BLOCKS Lin had one of the best overall stat lines on the team, AND he played very good defense on Westbrook... one of the fastest PG's in the league, WITHOUT the benefit of double-teams. As for the particulars, one of Lin's misses came off a 6 second scoring attempt at the end of the 3rd quarter. Take that out and he shot 50%. And one of Lin's TO's came from a pass to Asik that Asik did not even TRY to catch. Asik stood like a deer in the headlights then gave a Gomer Pyle look like, "Oh, was that for Me? My bad." Really, the stat line was fine given the circumstances and the opposition. Folks are acting like he should be some kind of All Star already. Seriously, get a grip...
Everybody needs to stop with the bull**** about blaming it on the coaching staff. No coach is going to tell you to refrain from taking shots and just passing it to a single guy. TD is a chucker but you don't see coaches yank him aside and tell him to stop shooting.
Part of of Lin deferring is because of Harden but part of it is also because he has no handles. His turnovers would go up for sure if he wasn't deferring.
lol Lin played like a true point today and forced Westbrook to have as many field goals as he did turnovers. THe same people saying Lin should shoot more and "not play scared" are the same ones who were screaming for him to shoot less. He easily should've had at least 10 assists counting the Pat blown dunk and Asek lay up afterwards.
Nope. Westbrook prefers to get to the rim if he can, and only shoot jumpers if he can't. That's only logical for someone as insanely athletic as he is. Tonight he basically couldn't get to the rim, and was forced to shoot jumpers. Why was that?
man this guy is mentally weak, he doesn't know how to control the tempo of the game, he is simply not a PG, the guy was brought here for the money and business reasons.
Lol you dont watch OKC..Westbrook will shoot jumpers all game long..he likes to stop and pop..he can get to the rim whenever he wants but he shoots alot everybody knows this so ur not winning this argument
In the right system he would flourish. His career was on the way up and then all went down the ****ter that one year. We wouldn't have beaten Portland without him, and even though we lost this game this was ridiculous <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/H08QlVTud24" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NcDgL5iykDo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
torocan: I think you need to realize just a little bit that a reason a lot of the other players have those stat lines is because Lin is so passive. He's playing soft and without confidence. Mind you this wasn't the case the last two games. But tonight it was. Everyone else on the team had the same schedule and went to the same funeral as well. You can't cite that as an excuse. <br> If Lin is more confident and aggressive it really would have taken the pressure off of Harden tonight some. Instead, OKC just focused Harden. <br> You can't blame guys like Marcus Morris and Cook. They aren't starters or logging the minutes Lin does. They don't have an integral role in the team like Lin does. He simply has to do more on offense. I don't like this pass off to Harden and stand around thing that he does. <br> Patterson and Asik did their part. OKC made it their sole mission in life to make sure Harden did not beat them tonight. Lin had to step up. He didn't. It's as simple as that.
<br> You are an incredibly bad poster from what I have seen thus far. Please #educate yourself. So you can avoid embarrassing yourself with comments like the above.
Westbrook is a good on-ball defender, but Lin played timid tonight. With Harden struggling and us missing Parsons, Lin should have taken it upon himself to try to generate more offense. Instead, he was passive and deferring to guys like Daequan Cook.
