Lin isn't any worse on defense than anyone else. The team is bad in general. Of course, since this is Jeremy Lin we're talking about, everything's going to get blown out of proportion. None of the PGs tonight played big minutes. If McHale wants Harden to do it all then so be it.
It was a gift win and the Rockets played terribly. Harden did to much ISO at the end. This isn't going to help the team if Harden has to go hero-mode all the time.
Lin had a great game until the 3rd quarter, he was a big reason the Rockets was down only by 1. Harden was solid in the 3rd and 4th right up to the last "stupid" iso dribble and lose the ball routine. Brooks was just as bad as Lin up to the final foul.
I agree he (Lin), should watch his tapes. He did well in the Spurs and the next games. But after the rest days, I dunno what happened but he reverts back to "habits"?. He need to look at his performance tonight to get better. Look, as a Lin Fan, I watched how Lin does on the court, my eyes are tuned to looking for #7. And man, I wish to take Lin out half of the 3rd Q so his defensive flaws will not be detrimental - plus, not magnified to earn him a gig at the 4th, where I think he does best.
pnr defense is all about hedging and playing team defense.. if you play 2v2 and your pg gets picked.. the opposing point guard has a HUGE advantage
Ugly win! but I'll take it. Things to work on 1. Lower the turnovers(too many boneheaded TOs) 2. Continue building up on this defensive effort 3. Rebounding(knicks had way too many offensive rebounds from tyson and barg,Dwight needs to step it up in the rebounding department)
Dunno why everyone is blaming Lin for the 3rd quarter, when pretty much all the damage was done by Shump (13 pts) and Melo (11 pts). Beno scored a grand total of 4 pts against Lin in the 3rd.
McHale benched Lin at 3rd quarter was the right decision. But I just don't understand benching him the entire 4th quarter, unless he simply doesn't trust him. Period. Today's win is a lucky win. But it simply highlights the fact that Rockets needs better coaching if the aspiration is to win a championship. I said before and I will say it again. There is no way Rockets will win a championship under McHale. His rotation and player management is so bad. Not to mention that there are no reliable set-plays. This style we're playing won't win us deep playoff games.
I noticed that too. Our PnR defense suffers if Dwight's player sets the pick and we do quite well if it's a PF or an SF. Fair enough. Just add it to the list of things Rockets failed to execute tonight. I hope we are allowed to criticize McHale and Harden even though it was a W, a sad one at that.
Sorry if I sound like a LOF because sometimes I may be one. I think Lin has to pull an Omer to let Morey know that nerdball is only about numbers and that may work in a sterile and controlled environment but not in a ball game where intangibles plays a big part in determining how a team progress.
Lin played aggressively, maybe somewhat over-aggressively in the first half and scored 14. In the 3rd he had 2 assists and kept getting picked off by Chandler's screens but yeah, he didn't play good defense this game. Brooks shot what, 1-8? It's ridiculous. McHale just erased all of the trust he showed in Lin in containing Parker and coming up big in the 4th 2 nights in a row. McHale could yell, scream, get mad at Lin but this kid did not deserve to be benched the 4Q. That was crap coaching and short-term thinking by McHale. None of this stands if Lin was taken out because of an injury, but beyond that, that was pure crap by McHale.
The funny thing is I thought the worst defensive play he made was where he went to help in the paint, then over pursued Beno to the 3pt line allowing him to run right past him and get a layup. That was terrible. The screens are what they are. It's something that is a team defense issue. They've been playing it well recently, but if you look at that out of bounds play, Lin gets screened by Bargnani, Jones sits in no man's land while Beno goes straight to the basket. These are team defense issues. We got lucky and won, but it made no sense to keep AB in there. People are looking exaggerating Lin's deficiencies to justify some odd coaching moves.
You guys are happy about the W but he knows that none of the issues they have talked about have been addressed. If anything: - Lin played worse D - Harden pulled the same crap - No one fed the post properly aside from AB and he also kept deferring to Harden after a point. - McHale failed to have any impact on the game. Not to mention, we are probably going to get more injuries as the season goes on due to our short rotations. If you can be happy with the W with all these glaring issues, then good for you. I, on the other hand, think that Rockets don't even look like pretenders anymore.
