The Houston Rockets are in a terrible rut and Coach Kevin McHale was looking to shake things up. So that’s what he did. At the start of the second half of the Rockets game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, he benched Jeremy Lin along with Chandler Parsons and Patrick Peterson, SB Nation reports.
The move did not work. Lin’s replacement, Patrick Beverly committed two turnovers and three fouls in three minutes. Lin was quickly put back in and he scored ten of his 12 points of the game in the second half. But it wasn’t enough as the Rockets loss their seventh straight game, and fell to .500.
Truth is both James Harden and Lin have been in a slump of late. But Lin’s point production haven’t risen to the level of last season’s Linsanity. So it was him that got benched. How soon the Rockets return to their winning way and how Lin responds to the benching will determine the fate of the Rockets and their playoff chances.
“We’re not getting easy baskets anymore,” McHale said. “We’re not running hard. We’re so out of character right now. Turnovers. Guys are open. We’re not hitting them. We’re really in a funk. We have to get ourselves out of it, and we will.”
