ClutchFans Game Thread: Blazers @ Rockets 11/3/2012

No worries, will get them back on their home court on the 16th, book it!!!!

 

Rockets vs Blazers will be a competitive series throughout the season, looking forward to it... Freaking Batum was the X-factor blocking everything in sight....

 

The KEYS to win more games down the road:

#1 Three Point Threat - If we don't have 3pt threat, we will lose most of the games.
#2 Coach - if somehow McHale wouldn't like to call TO in the clutch, dear Clutch bear will not showcase.
#3 Bench - no more 40-mpg players please...

 

Most of the drive and dishes were ended up as bricks/mades from LMA...shooting 13/29, Props to Patrick's great D thou.

 

Our offense is just not up to par right now, despite having Harden in the backcourt. What is happening is Lin realizes the PnRs are not working. He's got Asik freeing him up somewhat but then Asik is not making a very good target on the roll.

Lin likes to throw the ball up for the dunk. Asik does not pivot and provide a good target. He crowds into the lane, does not create space to receive and throw down. Patterson isn't any better at it either. Aldrich is probably the best big we got right now (since Smith is hurt) at pivoting out of the pick and presenting a nice target to lob to. The difference between Tyson Chandler and his ability to finish and Asik/Patterson offensively is astounding.

The next factor is Lin's injury. He's favoring that knee. It's effecting his jumper when he picks up his dribble. It's effecting his ability to plant and spin on his drives to the basket. And it's effecting his ability to go up strong and play through the contact on his layups. Lin is not the same as he was pre-injury. Let's hope he finally comes back to full health and mentally he goes back to being that same ferociously, aggressive player. If he doesn't, then this version of Lin is the version we're stuck with.

So, because of these factors, Lin is bringing the ball up and immediately throwing it to Harden out high and letting Harden run the show. Harden is bigger and he's got more moves. He can take those picks and make something out of them even when the big men get all convoluted in the lane. But that wasn't even as effective last night as the D tightened up on Harden (like I said they would in another thread).

1. We've got to get our bigs (specifically Asik and PPat) to work on pivoting out of the pick, creating space, and receiving the lob. Otherwise, we're back to Pick-n-pop with Patrick. And if we're gonna go back to that, we might as well give Donuts and TJones a chance to run PnRs and PnPs.

2. We're gonna have to accept the stepped down version of Lin for awhile.

3. We're gonna have to find someone else that can run the point in PnR. It's not Douglas. Sorry, for as good as he is defensively, he's just as bad offensively. Everybody is bragging on his D last night....great. Dude went 1 for 6 I think and gave it all back offensively. He can't drive, can't run pick-n-roll, can't run pick-n-anything really, can't finish inside, and when his jumper is off, you've got nothing but empty possessions coming. We're already playing one guy who is a big zero on offense (Asik). You can't have two of those guys playing substantial minutes and expect to have anything close to an efficient offense. We would have been better off to let Parsons run the point last night when Lin and Harden were out. Or even Royce if he was active.

We're going to have to find optimal offensive sets to run when Lin and Harden aren't in there. Douglas dribbling around ain't gonna work. They had Delfino running the point with the bench in the first half. That worked great. But in the second half, not so much. They need some practices to figure it out.

 

Lin always does that, leave his man open because he's trying too hard on help defense, he never learnt from it. he has good athleticism(speed) but poor bbiq.

 

Et tu, Brute? I expect the Lin fans to conjure up every excuse in the book for Lin, but you?

Machado can't be any worse than Douglas, can he? This team isn't contending anyway, might as well throw Machado in the deep end, see if he floats.

 

Who is this Gil on a Knicks board and why would he use the same username as me if he intended to troll? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to ya know...change the handle?

You guys are delusional as always. Calling me some random Knicks fan because I don't think Lin's the second coming of Oscar Robertson.

 

Of course not, that would be Damian Lillard, duh????

 

I'm not a LOF. But I do like Lin. I really wanted a re-signed Dragic. Still don't understand that. But I do think Lin is a good point guard. If you simply watch footage of him last season and watch footage of him this season, you'll see the difference. His jumper is gimpy and he is not planting on his drives like he did pre-injury.

Don't see how Machado could be worse than Douglas offensively. But Machado is the direct contrast to Douglas defensively as well. He offers NO resistance defensively. He's just out there waiting to get the ball in his hands. I believe the best point guard we could pick up right now would be Shaun Livingston if we had a roster spot for him.

 

I don't know if he is still injured. Hard to say when you are watching from your television. But there are so many things going on with the team that to pinpoint it down to one thing is silly. Big trade, still learning, still finding chemistry etc. It will take time.

 

You do realize that before the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter, Lillard was shooting 0/3 from 3 point range, yah?

Lin went for help Defense on Lillard because he hadn't hit a 3 all night. He also was shooting very poorly from 3 point land prior to last night.

OKC - 2/6 from 3 point (33%)
Lakers - 1/4 from 3 point (25%)

Total 3 point shooting PRIOR to last night's game : 3/10 (30%)
Total 3 point shooting PRIOR to the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter : 3/13 (23%)

The 3 pointer that Lillard made was the FIRST and ONLY 3 pointer he made during regulation.

Then he went 2/2 in OT.

So, given Lillard's 3 point shooting that game, AND his shooting in the previous 2 games, it was a perfectly reasonable decision defensively to play Help defense on the guy that WAS scoring.

Prior to the last 5 minutes, Lillard had a grand total of 7 points. At the end of regulation he had 10 points.

Lillard was close to a non factor until the very last 5 minutes when he got red hot and hit a bunch of shots in a row (2 during regulation), the remainder in OT.

TD played 16 minutes in total. Who do you think was defending him for the ENTIRE rest of Regulation?

Lin made the CORRECT decision going to help defend the guy who COULD score (LeMarcus Aldridge). LMA was hurting them (mismatch against Patterson). Lillard just showed up with miracle shots at the end (long and open shots he'd been missing all night).

Seriously, there's a LOT of reasons why we lost the game last night.

Loss of defensive switching on Matthews.
Harden shooting poorly.
The rest of the bench missing Layups and wide open shots.

Bashing Lin for switching off a 23% 3 point shooter to double LeMarcus Aldridge is NOT one of them....

 

i think we should train Asik to how to dunk

 

Overall a good game, could go either way. Nothing to complain about. Let's see how they response next game, then we will know how good they really are.

 

Bwahaha Damian Llilard. The kid has talent I will give him that. But anybody that is calling him the truth after 3 games is bugging.

Joptamac are you sure that it is his knee. Like I feel like everyone is talking about his injury. But if you looked last year, he was surrounded by so much talent. More often than not he would be making mistakes not his teammates. In Houston, his teammates are the ones who aren't in the right positions aren't doing the right thing at the right time. So many different factors.

 

We need to get Asik the ball down low a lot more, the guy's been getting almost 20 rebounds a game, Come on Asik, we need you to make those shots and we would win ball games especially close ones like this, no???

 

Asik has bad hands. We all knew that when he was signed. Expecting him to have great hands overnight & to be a finishing beast is preposterous. He grabs like 15 rebounds a game is what we brought him here for. As far as I am concerned he is doing his job playing defense, grabbing boards, setting mean picks & screens, staying out of foul trouble. Anything offensively he brings is gravy.

 

Yeah but he can't miss easy gimme baskets as often as he does from point blank underneath the basket.

 

Great analysis. Whenever Lin does something "bad" it gets magnified to no end.

Also, after game 2 nobody was throwing up stats of other players yet suddenly a game where Lin doesn't put up great numbers the LOHs are throwing up stats of Lowry (in another loss) and coming to the conclusion of how a 3-game rookie is better etc. lol.

 

Sorry torocan, you usually post great stuff but this is just making excuses for Lin. During crunch time, he should've stayed with his man. Yes I agree that there were a lot of reasons for the loss but this is definitely one of them.

He has the tendency to over help on defense so this is not the first time.