ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Clippers 2/13/2013

Coaches are supposed to coach the players, not kiss their ass. I don't see any problem with how McHale/Sampson have handled Lin, and I consider myself a Lin fan. He's still young and needs a lot of coaching... if he's not doing something right the first few times, I expect the coaches to get on his ass about it, and NOT in a nice manner. Have you seen how Pop used to treat Tony Parker (and even STILL treats him today)??? Are you familiar with Bobby Knight, Pat Riley, even Coach K?

I think the elephant in the room is that a lot of Lin fans are female (especially on this forum, in case anyone couldn't figure out), and that's great, but that's where a lot of the differences lie. Some are extremely knowledgeable such as roxxy (there's more of course), while others are not so much. This is not meant to be sexist or a slight against our female members, but I believe it's the underlying cause of a lot of the disagreements/over-sensitiveness over Lin. Just another case of men are from Mars and girls are from Venus.

 

Count me in!

 

Look, I was responding to kozmo who said "he probably would not have taken lin out if he was willing to take a ****ing shot".

Well, if Lin was injured, he would not be able to continue to drive & dish to eg Dmo for the easy bucket, would he?

Anyway, the main point was McHale could have handled the situation & his players better. I mean if you want to make your player accountable for their mistakes, at least be consistent about it. Haven't we seen enough of the many TOs Harden or Parsons made during crunch time? Or in this game, how defensive lapses occurred & the TOs by Parsons, Delfino & Beverley committed prior to Lin's 2nd TO at the end of 2nd Q?

This is what I saw from the game, and I didn't like it at all. I wasn't expecting a win from this game either, just thought McHale was simply bad or rather poor in player managment. Frankly if you are the type of coach who gets into your players' face all the time for their mistakes, I don't see anything wrong with that. At least the coach got to be consistent about it. Now imagine if you are the ONLY one who was singled out in spite of the many mistakes the rest of the team made (including the best player & team captain), how would you feel?

 

Friedman said it was bruised. Hasn't Dwill had a sore wrist all season? If so, this is going to suck.

 

Isn't it pretty laughable that you think you know what's going on in McHale and Sampson's sub-conscience based on a few limited interactions where you can't hear what's being said? It isn't laughable to base all these theories on facial expressions?

Anyway, I'm calling it rubbish because it is rubbish. I suspect a lot of you Lin fans are female and just starting watching basketball during Linsanity. That's fine, nothing wrong with that. I'm a woman myself.

But (1) you don't know much about basketball, (2) you interject drama where there is none, (3) you need to step away from Lin a little bit to get some real perspective. Though Lin is an admirable person with a tough mentality, he's not Jackie Robinson. The world isn't out to get him. Don't take it personally if he doesn't become a superstar like you think he deserves.

It is really, really annoying to read this stuff in every thread. It's not about basketball at all. It's like an episode of the OC. Omg, did you see the look Sampson gave Jeremy?

 

the sad part is, those who were criticizing Harden will always be labelled LOF..that's a norm here I think..they will always think that Harden is criticized because Lin fans would like to props Lin up...anyway, I, as a a Lin fan already accepted that reasoning....no matter what, I know what Lin is capable..to quote what Coach Mike D'Antoni said "He had done it before, he can do it again"...

 

And have you seen Woodson took it out on Lin for his TOs? When Lin played for Woodson, he had tremendous trust in Lin. During the 7 games (6W-1L) where Lin played under Woodson, there were 4 blown-out games (3W-1L), & in the only 1 close game against the 76ers, Woodson said after the game that he trusted Lin with the ball at the end of that game (note: NOT Melo nor Amare) & Lin delivered. This was despite the fact that Lin played poorly in the 1st 3 quarters with several TOs (Lin played well in the other games though). That's how much faith Woodson had in Lin!

And to dismiss others' comments like you did is just disrespectful.

 

To the So-called LOF: McHale may not prefer Lin but I'm sure he doesn't want Lin to fail. Plus, even if it is true that the coaches are LOHs, it will only make Lin stronger. IMHO mentally he tougher than anyone else on his team. If they want to **** on him now it can only mean that he'll be an All-Star sooner rather than later. Win-win for Lin.

To anyone who hates on a player just because you hate his "-Only" fans: you're acting like an immature dick so please stop.

 

It's pretty clear now that Woodson didn't want Lin back, or at least Lin wasn't a big part of his championship plans.

You can't judge what a coach thinks about a player based on these limited interactions, or his "coaching style."

That's just what Woodson is -- he'll let Felton and JR shoot the whole team out of the game.

 

I guess the issue here is some lump whoever defends Lin by showing some unhappiness towards coaches as fanatic LOF, so called Justin Biber fan type. That's extremely arrogant. If you don't want people call you LOF just because you support Lin, then don't label other Lin supporters as 'paranoid' 'crazy' 'rubbish-talking' LOFs.

As I said in my post, there will always be some extreme ones which nobody should pay them attention. (Twitter world is a little different story because of the fangirls there) If I call remember correctly, there probably are no more than 10 or max 20 of them on this site. But there are plenty of Lin fans here. And not only Lin fans are complaining coaches, a lot of other vets are complaining coaches too albeit for many other reasons.

McHale/Sampson has its coaching style. You can like/agree with them or you don't have to. People here just expressing their opinions. Personally, I don't have problems that McHale yelling at Lin. But I do dislike Sampson's body language whenever Lin or other players make mistakes.

People always use the example of Pop and Parker. I don't buy it at all. There is only one Pop and he earned it to have any attitude towards any of his players. McHale and Sampson IMO haven't earned it to worth compare them to coach Pop. Even Pop is also careful/conscious of Parker's reaction. In one of the video, when he had to play Parker to a full second half, he asked Parker if he would be OK to do that. (I'll find the video if I got time)

There is a tough love, and there is D'Antoni's style of love. Personally I would rather have D'Antoni style of love: let him make and learn from mistakes by playing him not yelling all the time and pulling him out whenever he (it's not just Lin, any other young players that's on our roster, be it Parsons or D-Mo) makes a mistake. Lin is not the type that you need to whip his ass to make him better. He has enough self-motivation and self-consciousness to know what/if he did right or wrong. That's why my response to all the 'tough love' is: meh.

 

Pls read my post again, I did not judge what Woodson thought. That's what Woodson said during that postgame interview! Do you have reading comprehension issue?

And since you made the point that Woodson did not take it out on Shump, I just asked if you have seen Woodson took it out Lin on his TOs? Again that was not a judgement.

What has the Knicks FO not willing to take on Lin's poison pill contract has to do with Woodson's trust in Lin when Lin was a knicks? You are not being logical.

 

So you think Lin said McHale is like a father figure for PR reason? I for one think he is as genuine as they come. IIRC he's never said that about Woodson, or even D'Antoni.

 

We're not a team with many veterans. Most of our players are still learning how to be pros which is really glaring during back to back games. I respectfully disagree in coddling players who haven't proven to be self-reliably consistent yet.

Also, D'Antoni quit on his team last year however justifiable this may be. I'm not very keen on having a quitter coach our team. Ever.

 

Relationship can be changed with time.

 

What are you talking about?

And it was more the Knicks FO. Woodson filled the roster with old vets. Lin isn't a Woodson-type player. Doesn't mean they hated each other or anything.

By the way, in interviews, Lin has never said anything nice about Woodson. He has said nice things about MDA and McHale, but when asked about Woodson, he just says, "different coach, different style." That's it.

My point is, you can't judge the relationship based on coaching style or limited interactions you see during games. I don't really know what your point is.

 

I swear some fans just won't be happy till they see "Linsanity" and will continue to blame coach, Harden, Asik's stone hands, etc.

 

Lin hurt his right wrist (main shooting side) in the 1st half. He was also probably starting to gas by the 2nd half with the game being a b2b. So, his 2nd half performance was understandable expecially given Chandler was given alot of the ball handling duties in the 2nd half...very likely because McFail was aware of Lin's right wrist.

Having said that, it doesn't mean I'm excusing McFail's typically crappy coaching style which I fully agree is terrible and often inexplicable. Why was PPat benched so long and why does this knucklehead insist on benching viable prospects on an admittedly young team full of rookies and sophomores while his supporters say he doesn't like "rookies"? D-Mo and Anderson don't even get a chance to play until halfway into the season and usually not even during garbage minutes.

 

funny thing is Woodson didnt want Lin cause he thought he shot the ball too much and he wanted more of a distributor, turns out Felton jacks up the most shots next to Melo, so they start Kidd now.

 

Below is a quote from someone who was in the game..

 

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