After an awful shooting night from both of the stars in the backcourt, it’s hard to point one blaming finger as to why the Houston Rockets lost and fell to the 8th spot in the Western conference. But there’s a worrying pattern over the last few weeks, with James Harden getting too much credit as the ball handler, which simply wastes away the abilities of Jeremy Lin and makes the Rockets in general look worse than they should.

While a lot of the success and ascent into a playoff team this season has to do with James Harden joining the Houston Rockets, the kind of basketball he forces the team to play doesn’t always benefit them and suit the rest of the players. This time, without him on the floor, Jeremy Lin didn’t break out into some memorable performance, but he was the anchor of a different, team-oriented game that might be more suitable for the Rockets’ needs.

On some nights, you think that the Jeremy Lin – James Harden backcourt duo is the best in the NBA. In other games, like the most recent win for the Houston Rockets, you clearly see the difference between an OK, sometimes outstanding point guard who still has plenty of improvements to make, and someone who is already a full fledged NBA superstar.