I love how people dismiss the analysis just because the OP is a Lin fan. Only a few posters actually made some intelligent points to argue against the analysis.
"Either run a break, or just pass the court and milk the clock." If no clear break, then pass the half court in 8 sec. Then, why Mchale didn't call timeout? I think "run break" is one option, as Mchale himself said later.
Wow can't believe some of you are blaming McHale for this. Lin is clearly a mental midget and panics with pressure. That comparison to the Doc Rivers calling the TO is different. Lin wasn't trapped or in desperate need of help. Like others said he could have passed it out if he didn't panicked. This play is a bang bang play there were no obvious signs of trouble right up until the ball was stolen. So McHale should have sensed Mo Williams is right behind Lin and called the TO? It is a PG's job to bring the ball up securely. End of story. Come on guys.
The Irony. Your ability to understand and accept simple facts is just mind boggling, here are the facts once again. Facts : 1. Lin's offense sucked donkey ass in G4, that's why he got pulled in early 4th Q. 2. McHale sub Lin in late in the game because of comment sense, which he trust a guy whose under this system for this team for 2 full seasons in PG position should play at least a better defense and handle the ball a little bit better than a freaking rookie called up from the D-league. 3. McHale gave instruction to the team : once you get the ball, either you have a clear shot at fast break or just call a time out. 4. who the f**k will start a fast break when you were getting a rebound under your basket with 2-3 opponents around you and your teammates were standing around and 2 of the other opponents already back in their own half court? who will be dumb enough to even have that thought at all? Obviously only LOF and Lin (as assumed by LOF). 5. Every single time after Lin did something stupid the last 3 games, his expression was the explanation of the reason. G2 - dumb foul at 30 seconds, while both Bev and Harden yelling at him like WTF, Lin looked like " what the f**k I just did?" G3 - his famous fast break at 50 seconds, after the failed layup attempt, again, "what the f**k I just did?" expression on his face. G3 - after his late game TOV, Harden was telling him its OK and just need to keep playing, again he looked lost and its like "what the f**k I just did?" G4 - after this (probably the worse TOV in this whole career so far), he looked exactly the same and even in his interview after the game : "what the f**k I just did?" And then you still have the guts to come here trying to blame others and finding excuses for Lin? Yeah right, Why the hell McHale did not call that TO? Why Parsons was standing near mid court but not running to Lin and tackle him and take the ball away from him? Why both Harden and Bev and Howard your all lazy ass were standing around but not to set some hard picks to take Mo Williams out? And why? why? why? why Morey will sign Lin to the Rockets and promised him to be the superstar of the next decade in this team but only to trade for Harden before the season started and eventually secretly told McHale to use every ways possible to destroy Lin's career here?
So you're saying that if we don't agree with this "truth" that we're cowards and stupid? Nice. I won't address your list because clearly I'm a stupid coward.
Lol. Dude blamed everyone after saying "The analysis does not intend to blame anyone". LOFs gonna LOF
I wish we could get a straight answer on what happened. McHale claims he told the players to call a timeout. If that's true, then Lin is either an idiot or didn't pay attention to his coach. If McHale is lying or was unclear, then he's either an incompetent coach or a horrible person for throwing his player under the bus like that(and doing it in a dishonest manner).
You said "McHale claims he told the players to call a timeout." Sounds like a straight answer to me. . . .
well, G3 I dont think that were mistakes, G4 I do think he made the mistake. It has nothing to do with LIN, I try to be objective, I would comment the same if other player did it. agree to disagree,
Lin has already said that he should've called time out in that situation, so I don't see the real purpose of this thread. It isn't going to help the Rocket win game 5.
Allow me to show you guys how IQ challenged Lin is.... Instructions given to him are: 1) If there is a fastbreak opportunity, bring the ball up the court and take advantage 2) If not call a timeout A fastbreak opportunity in that situation usually means a LONG rebound after the miss headed towards the Blazers basket where when a Rockets player grabs the ball, the ball is ALREADY AHEAD of several Blazers players. Lin grabs the rebound right under the board. At this point, every single player is between Lin and the Blazers basket. basically he has to run the entire length of the court. The instructions given to him clearly asked him to call a timeout in this case. EVEN if no one gave him this instruction, he should have known this. 9/10 times you will see players either look to their bench to call a time out or call it themselves. He should have cradled the ball with both his hands, held it close to his chest, pivoted to the closest referee, and motioned for a time out. Basic simple play that you see a couple of times every single game. Instead, what he proceeds to do here is one of the dumbest things I have seen him do (and Lin has done some really dumb things).... He proceeds to run a fast break THROUGH the traffic in a EAST to WEST direction ALONG the baseline RIGHT UNDER his OWN Basket.! No seriously, it does not get any more stupid than that.
Look at the picture you quoted, its quite clear what happened. He is terrified of where Mo Williams is and his fear has displaced any common sense or basketball IQ. He is a mentally weak idiot whose weakness directly cost the Rockets game 4.
So then Lin is an idiot. You don't need to dribble the ball first to call a timeout. In fact, that's the worst thing you can do(well aside from turning it over). It forces you take the ball in the backcourt out of the timeout(like at the end of regulation in Game 3). Plus it uses up part of the 8 seconds you're given to get it over the halfcourt line. I'm not gonna pretend to know what was going on in Lin's dome, but the best guess I can come up with is that he anticipated getting fouled intentionally by the Blazers and dribbled around until that happened. Which would make sense actually given his F-up at the end of Game 2 when he himself fouled intentionally with the Rockets down only 3 and 30 seconds remaining. Obviously we intelligent folks watching the game knew damn well no intentional foul was coming(barring an act of stupidity on the part of the Blazers) since there were 33 seconds left and it was only a 2 point game. The Blazers' gameplan was to let the Rockets run their offense and try to either get a stop or steal and then go for the tie or win. But given that Lin seems incapable of understanding clock management in the NBA(or taking care of the damn basketball), he instead allowed Portland to get a steal immediately.
No, you can only be intelligent if you agree with that other guy. Wait, you have to be courageous too.
nothing to analyze. bad play by Lin. we need to analyze the problem with closing out games that we have been having.
The problem is that when you constantly have a player offering up a "my bad" after making critical errors or simply playing poorly, we get past the point of forgiveness and reach the stage where this player is a detriment to his own team. Lin has made huge mistakes in the last 3 games. They've already been well-documented(including by me), so there's no need to recap them again. But suffice it to say, he cost his team a shot at going for a tie at the end of Game 2. He cost his team a win in regulation in Game 3(luckily they won in OT). And he cost his team a win in regulation in Game 4(this time they weren't so lucky). Were there other players responsible for the Rockets falling short in Games 2 and 4(Lin was obviously in no way responsible for the Game 1 loss)? Absolutely. But you can't have a rotation player who gets 20-30 minutes a night making such critical errors that directly lead to a loss. Not in the playoffs where literally every game counts and the difference between a 2-2 tie and 3-1 deficit is as big as the damn Grand Canyon.
i think the best option would be to hold the ball or pass it to run the clock. calling timeout stops the clock (what the blazers want) and takes a TO away from us.
A time out would have advanced the ball to midcourt. That would have been infinitely preferable to running around under our own basket and getting a turnover.
