The reason I'm annoyed at this benching is because "going with the hot hand" is a short term strategy. The message we are sending these players by benching them is that we don't believe in their future development and only see them as a stopgap as opposed to young stars like Harden/Westbrook who were almost never benched in a similar fashion despite obvious flaws in their game early on. Right now, the Rockets seem content with running a basketball version of "running back by committee" with Lin and Bev. This stunts the growth of both Lin and Bev. Both of these players are very young, and not letting them play through crap games is limiting their in-game confidence and situational awareness. Although you can win games in the short-run with this "hot hand" strategy, our window for winning a championship is not nearly as short as people will have you believe. If we were the Nets, then you maximize whatever chances you have this year; with one of the youngest teams, you need to still develop your borderline star players ala the Spurs. Imagine if young Tony Parker was benched for half the game when he proved ineffective. Personally, I believe that Lin has miles more potential and should be given the green light to develop. Regardless, we need to CHOOSE one of these two guards and let them play through their mistakes. This is getting silly.
That second unit at the end of the 3rd pretty much gave the game away. we had a 16 point lead, when they came in, when they left it was down to 7. By then the Mavs had all the momentum and when Dirk gets momentum even at his age, he plays like the best big man in basketball. The guy can still be a top 5 player in flashes. As for Harden, I noticed when Ellis blew by him and harden was left motionless Howard went beserk at him motiong move you'r feet and he let him have it all the way to the bench. I like that by Dwight. Harden is our best player, but sometimes he needs a blast or a benching to get him to focus. He day dreams on to many defensive sets.
Popp used to berate and abuse the Young Parker in practice. Listen to one of Duncans interviews where he said popp left Parker in tears after one practice session . Popp benched Parker regulary.
This is true but Mchale & Lin won't be here long term, pop did that because he knew him & Parker were not going anywhere and it was better to get it out now than later
If your dad did this to you doesn't make it right for you to do it to someone else. What would you do if you saw a homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk?
So basically if Bev played like he did yesterday? I think Lin should've played more minutes early and more with the starters to get comfortable. If he would've been in the game a little more he could've found his stroke and been a threat at the end of the game. But the minutes he had yesterday meant that if he was gonna come out of that cold streak it would've had to come at a crucial time. He hadnt yet established his jumper. Idk if it was the gameplan or lack of minutes, or what, but he wasn't driving to the basket like he usually does. Something was off.
The point is tough love.Thats besides the point, the whole argument of this thread is lin got screwed forv playing 17 minute. No that's not right. Lin was the worst player for us out there. Even Asik looked more into it and that's saying something. If Lin was playing like he was in the 5 game prior, he would have got 30 plus minutes like he usually does.No ill treatment here just the coach trying to win.
Maybe no ill treatment there. But if coach was trying to win he should have adjusted when mavs played zone. Or the coaching staff should have taught our players how to handle the zone in practice. Mchale was simply outcoached in the 4th quarter yet again.
I said in part. If Lin is thriving with a new role, be happy for him. We lost. We will lose another. Lin will have another bad game. Harden will have another game. Life goes on. If I felt the need to point fingers at everyone for everything I'd be a pretty grumpy person. Chances are if a dude's start/bench status in a game, regardless of that persons own happiness and success seriously affects your day on a predicatable and regular basis, you might have 1 or 2 priorities out of line.
Mistreated or not I call yesterday's game poor coaching. Everyone will have their own opinion on whether or not it was the right call to limit your 2nd best scorer to 17mins due to a few bad shots. Personally if i was coach I let Lin play on. I can recall a crap load of games where Harden starts off ridiculously poor shooting like 1 for 7 and beyond then later on finds his touch and go 8-16 just like that. If any of yall actually play ball in real life you'll know exactly what I mean. This team aint going anywhere if you can't trust your players period.
There's only 48 minutes a game, and only 5 spots available to let a player work through their bad night. We'll never know it if was a poor decisions or not in all cases. Lin wasn't making the best case for himself, though.
I bet anyone would like to be mistreated like Lin. 20 million dollars, car endorsements, every chinese christian girl ready to throw their hello kitty panties at you. yeah he's mistreated.
