Okay okay, fair enough. Lin is definetely over talked about here. On your remark about teams figuring out, it's actually false. At least based on one game, I'm pretty sure it's false. Would like to look at the numbers within our losing streak, but I'm too lazy. Take example for Minnesota. Rockets had 8 steals vs Minny's 4. Had more rebounds, but they didn't run. Today on the other hand, there was a burst of running in the 3rd quarter which actually closed the deficit from 11 points to 3 points. In the 4th, it was a half court set again, and they were playing catch up and a couple of shots helped seal the victory. Anyways, I like Lin and all, but to blame our losing streak on players, especially saying that one player is not "aggressive" is beside the point. It's really Mchale that moved away from our succesful strategy, IMO.
only ONE player can "take over" and the coaches have obviously given harden the green light. that leaves lin without the ball. and guess what? he's best when he has the ball. why do we act as if this wasnt known prior to signing him? again its 50/50. lets not act as if the offense is designed around him, and runs through him instead of harden. we all saw what happened in the spurs game. some of us saw linsanity in ny as it happened and not on sportscenter. the point is that when he has been given the drivers seat, he has performed well. as long as harden is "the man" lin will not play well. thats the honest truth. the short term solution is to stagger their minutes as much as possible so lin can essentially be a backup (but he must start games for PR reasons)... except the COACHES play him 40 minutes and expect him to take over night after night.... because lin needs the ball to shoot well. he also needs a mid range based offense. is this news to everyone? are all you guys learning about this now? these are well known facts....
im way more in favor of the PG distributing the balls as a PG should, but i think this team is young right now and they have not yet developed a refined offense from which the PG can be as effective. so what i am saying is put lin on the bench and let him ball, next season when our offense develops then we insert lin back into the starting 5. its obvious that the coaching staff wants harden to have the ball, but i dont think thats going to be permanent. but harden has shown that he can distribute the ball well, some games making more assists than jeremy. again, i agree with you that the PG should distribute the ball and i have been saying that since harden has been given free reign. although for now, their is a defensive liability with lin and harden on the floor that beverly possibly can fill. right now since lin is not being used in the starting 5, put him on the bench and if he is playing good put him back in the starting 5. there is nothing wrong with a good player being on the bench, if that is where he can be better utilized for the time being i think its better for the team.
I think the coaching staff is probably gearing in your direction too. I don't think it's going to work though. Frankly, I don't even think Harden wants the ball in his hands all the time. He was scoring way more efficiently during our 10 wins in 12 try earlier this season. His FG% was like 12/18. Now, he gets the ball ALL the time and we're in a losing streak plus 5-20 games, and we could barely score 80 points. Clearly there is something wrong with this ball in Harden's hand mentality. I think Lin and Harden would agree w/ me, :grin: they both should be on the floor running and gunning. Harden and Lin was already working, it was the coaching staff's dumb ISO harden designed plays. This losing streak was NOT Lin's fault as most people are trying to make it out to be. It was all coaching staff going back to the sets that they were using from games 1 through 24. Just my opinion though.
again, use my example. game 7 for the championship. 0 sec left on the clock. technical foul for the win. dantoni chooses howard. who is at fault here? everybody here loves to criticize lin, or in my example howard, but the decisions come from the top down. we all know lin cant spot shoot, so why are we so surprised when he misses? like really, by now you should expect him to miss and be pleasantly surprised if he makes it.... instead why arent we mad at the coaches first for putting him in a position to fail? the offense SHOULD be tailored for lin, when harden is sitting, but we still see the SAME THING! TD is the PG and lin spots for 3s..... unfrigginbelievable!!!!
I think our run and gun offense that got us scoring like crazy earlier in the season suited Lin very well. Actually, the offense ran through him. I think Harden would rather have this too. When we were having the run and gun, Harden was scoring very efficiently, 12/18, and Lin was the floor general. Now it seems like they went away from it. Could it be that Mchale can't stand Lin being the floor general? Possibly. Maybe the half court sets that Mchale was using that got us into the losing streak was designed to control our fatigue in the 4 games in 5 night stretch? Either way, the last 8 games was a disaster.
the coaching staff is setting up these ISO's to groom harden into becoming a better alpha, they know right now that their is a lack of offensive team chemistry. this reminds me of a similar story when adelman was really pushing for trevor ariza to shoot the ball because the season prior when the lakers won their ring adn defeated us in the 2nd round, ariza played well and showed a lot of potential. i think the same thing is going on here, the coaches want harden getting use to being an alpha and unlike ariza he has shown that he can be one.(maybe not a kobe but pretty good) like you said, i dont think harden even wants to shoot the ball that much but the coaches force him to do it. when adelman was testing ariza, ariza would get the ball sooo much and brick so much and their developed a similar problem with the team that we see now between the SG and PG. aaron brooks and trevor ariza were both in the starting 5, and both players showed a ton of potential the season before (similar to this season) but for a time it seemed that adelman wanted ariza to shoot more than brooks, and people were saying that brooks and ariza were incompatible since they both needed the ball in their hand to be efficient. later there developed some conflict with ariza and brooks, and brooks was taken over ariza and ariza left for the NO hornets. the next season we saw much better team ball, and our offense (the same offense chris finch was running at that time for adelman for the RGV) developed into the most team assists in the NBA. long story short, brooks became a chucker while kyle lowry became a great PG off the bench evetuall taking brooks spot. lowry was also a PG who drove a lot to the basket and had a bad jump shot, but he worked hard and developed a great jumper and became one of the top PG's on the team.i guess the moral of the story is that they are choosing to do this now with harden because they know this season is the best opportunity to do it, next season we will see much better team ball being played. and lin will probably emerge with a greater roll for the offence, for now offense is give the ball to someone and see what they can do with it. the defense is where we need to be worried.
Good article. It makes sense to build the roster complimenting your best player (Harden). Totally agree with the point of letting Lin the run 2nd unit and finding a more suitable PG to pair with Harden. And its about damn time we try Jones and D-MO.
There are a few players on the rockets team that have a better burst of speed off the first step than Harden.
no. other teams are simply getting back on d faster and forcing us to a half court game. i mean if we know this, do you really expect the opposing coaches no to? our half court is basically street ball. no sets. even the sets are silly sets designed for jacking up ungodly amounts of 3s... there is no post game, no mid range game.... pack the paint and the only way we win is if we shoot lights out behind the arc. during out winning streak, we did. losing streak we didnt. very simple...
wow. 2nd time this has actually ever happened. Amazing, I back Lin normally and when I bring up the fact that it is his responsibility to improve his play I am a LOH? I have rooted for many players on this team far before Lin was ever an NBA player. Why the hell would I hate Lin and want him to do bad when I have been rooting for the rockets so long? I WANT LIN TO DO WELL. You are turning this into a conspiracy theory just like with the coaching staff out to get lin.
Hard to tell if that was really the case (about teams adjusting to our transition). What I do know is that we were transitioning in the third quarter against the bobcats and that was what got us back into the game. Anyhow, I really think it's hard to stop a very well played fast break game, especially when Lin plays it. This was one of the things I saw in NY. He dribbles fast down the court and finds the open man fast in rythm. Yes, I followed Lin here, so let's get that out of the way. I think this is his strongest suit, leading the breaks. If Mchale is going to steer away from this, then perhaps this is not the team Lin should be on. I doubt that having the ball in Harden's hands is going to make it any better as we have seen in the last 8 games. Or perhaps Morey and Alexander wants the running game and Mchale is going to get fired, which seems to be more likely than the former scenario. Anyways, we'll see. I think if we go back to the running game, we'll win.
its not that they are out to get him. rather its a blatant disregard of letting him do what he does best. instead they try to make him fit in a system that he has no chance of fitting in. look at patterson. they practically forced him to shoot 3s and when he misses we all groan? they play him 5 sometimes and when he gets bullied around by legit 7 fters we groan? morris is a natural 3 and yet plays 4 and when he gets bullied by real 4s we groan? its NOT just lin. its everyone. lin is just the shining example of the inept coaching due to his notoriety and what he showed he can do in ny and in that spurs game. the spurs game was amazing not because of his attacking the basket. he tries that every game. what made it different was the mid range 2s he hit and the 3s were effortless...
To tell you the truth, I thought there already was good team chemistry earlier. Anyhow, I think it's a big mistake to train anyone as an alpha player. Not going to work, or at least, you need a coach like Phil J. Look at San Antonio Spurs. Doesn't seem to have any alpha there. Cheers.
running starts with rebounding and defense. if we can, we always run. why lin is particularly good is that he runs full speed everytime, even when its not an obvious transition. he tries to make something out of nothing by pure hustle. that doesnt show up in the boxscore and its one of his best intangibles... hustle.
Can a Lin - Harden - DMO - TJones - Asik starting 5 ever be done?! We NEED to start using DMO and TJones. I want them both to surprise everyone like Greg surprised all of us!! Mr. D
The Minny game, we had 43 boards vs their 37, and we also had 8 steals vs their 4 but we didn't run. Anyways, Mchale will probably fired soon. I think Les Alexander wanted the run too, as said by one of the threads here.
Ideal realistic Harden lineup would be: PG: TD SG: Harden SF: Luol Deng (or someone like him) PF: Parsons C: G. Smith This line up would space the floor, put a defensive stopper on the floor in Deng, and include a big who can compliment the PnR not impede it. Hardens ideal partner in the back court would be another combo guard who plays D, just like TD who has been benched for some reason. That article mentions that Lin and Parsons are not the ideal match for Harden, even mentioning Durant and Westbrook as a theoretical playoff opponent. But how would playing Beverly at PG help Parsons cover Durant? The obvious answer is it wouldn't as any lineup with parsons at SF would mean Durant would put up 40 plus a game on us. So Parsons would have to roid up and play PF or else he would need to be traded. Asik does not mesh with Harden since he clogs the paint so he would have to go. People here are too critical of Lin. He has struggled a lot lately as has Harden. But basketball is all about fitting together in a system. Only a hand full of guys can just do their thing and still succeed no matter what like Lebron and Shaq. Lin has gotten better at his weaknesses all season long except his range and he is only a solid 3 point shot away from being a great PG. Even D. Howard looks bad this year because he is not a good fit with his teammates, so does Gasol. But the fact remains that he doesn't fit this team with Harden. If you have Harden you negate what Lin does best and even Harden is struggling lately in this mismatched team. So Lin has to go too.
