Actually from an offensive production standpoint its Smith at the 5 with Delfino at the 4. If you do some homework, its evident that those small ball lineups can go on huge offensive runs. When your team is playing like crap, and you are essentially going for the hail mary pass... That's a lineup you will probably see at least for a short while down the stretch. I dont see last nights small lineup as a case that McHale somehow doesn't like playing Asik. I saw it more as a hail mary pass to try and go on a run late in the game. The Asik/Lin/Harden/Parsons/Patterson lineup has logged the most minutes of any rotation all season long. So the obvious answer is the rotation that has logged the most minutes probably is the lineup the coach likes to play the most.... or am I taking crazy pills here?
I did my home work and all I see late in the game no matter who's in the lineup, Harden goes ISO the last few possessions. Forget about Smith and Delfino's offensive ability. They're useless late in the game. Harden's going to take his shots which is fine but our defense and rebound game usually get raped. Switch Delfino with TJones if you really want to spread the floor. At least he's a better rebounder and defender under the rim.
Kinda defeats the purpose of trying to spread the floor if your 4 man can't shoot the 3 doesn't it? Shooting the 3 is actually a big part of those small lineups that have been able to go on big runs all season long. My statement about small ball had nothing to do with Harden going ISO at the end of games, or about end of game closing lineups all together because the most important thing to consider is last night the Rockets were not in a closing situation where they were trying to just maintain in the half court. They were in a situation where they were playing from behind almost all night, and needed to make a run late in the game. Hence why the coaches threw out the hail mary pass instead of going with a more STABLE lineup of Lin/Harden/Parsons/PF/Asik.
It seems like Harden always over-helped in defense. Not sure that is from the OKC's system where they have 2 intimidating bigs at any time
He plays like that because we don't have a reliable power forward. I guarantee you next year he won't be playing small if we get a power forward
but is this vs the bench or starters? perhaps the bad times stick in my memory but watching delfino struggle against legit bigs all season is nothing short of
I think thats part of it. Watch OKC even now, and its amazing what they are allowed to get away with on defense as far as floating around to cherry pick & get steals. Brooks is always preaching defense when they mic him up during timeouts, but I dont see great defensive accountability on that team at all. I think that team is great in spite of him, not because of him. Kinda goes to show you that its the players that really get the job done at the end of the day... the coaches get both too much praise, and too much criticism. When Harden is locked in though defensively, he's totally capable of being a very good defender, and rebounder. Once he matures a bit more in a starring role, I think he will ultimately get much better in the last half of his career just like many other great players have done before.
Just in general when the team is down some of those smallball lineups have offensive ratings through the roof. I dont have the stats to show if they were playing against bench players. Since its half starters, half reserves, I would assume its mostly coming in 2nd and 3rd quarter runs. Im not a big +/- guy but late in games you know what lineup actually has the best rating of any other lineup- Lin/Harden/Parsons/Delfino/Smith Thats not a great stat I know, but you can take from that what you want to. The fact is that lineup has been used a ton in late game situations, and has overall done very well when used.
The lineup is the best if you have ball movement. That usually comes during mid qtrs. And the small line up also help us to get back in the game in 3rd qtr. What I don't get is when everyone knows you're going to Harden in the last few min, McHale still plays small ball. Oh let me tell you what's the best +/- lineup. Lin/Beverely/Parsons/Delfino/Asik. Now you see.
stats without context is useless. if bev is in, its mostly vs the bench. and lin/bev have rarely played together, only very recently, thus the sample size must be minuscule.
I'm not against small ball, and I agree it is one of our most effective weapons at times. You have to play to your strengths whenever possible. But we put out the Tyrion Lannister lineup near the end and couldn't touch the ball unless we were inbounding it after a score.
Our defense is why we are not winning game. Should I say there is no defense whatsoever? If we play like this, we will get swipe in round 1.
My post was replying to dobro1229's. He said just in general without considering vs bench or starters, small line up has the best +/-. I'm just providing counter argument that our best +/- lineup has Asik in it. Also it's interesting that there's no Harden. That just shows defense is just as important as offense if not more. Small line up can spark a run for a few min but how many time we see the other team get back with runs of their own and McHale still fails to realize the lineup is not sustainable. There's no way to excuse Mchale going small all 4th qtr last night.
against the clippers, end of a b2b, mchale established the presence of eyebrows and he flourished. Against the suns, end of b2b, mchale attempted to establish the presence of eyebrows and they got burned. big ball was letting luifa get every shot he wanted.
