Eddie House was under-utilized

[yoursweatersux]

I'm not going to waste my time typing out the details... I'm sure we all watched the games and you can figure out what I mean by the title of the topic.

But seriously, how come we never set picks for him when Courtney Lee was guarding him? We'll set double picks all day for Ray (even though he was bricking shots) and Eddie, who had been on fire the entire playoffs, had to look for his own shots with Lee sticking to him like glue.

So Eddie wasn't utilized well when he was in the game. But what about getting him into the game in the first place? In my opinion, we saw way too much Stephon and way too little Eddie. Screw it, maybe let Paul or somebody else take the ball up the court if you don't like Eddie's ball control, but his shooting is too valuable to keep him off the court. Has everybody forgot that we basically won the last couple games of the finals because of the spacing that Eddie provided??? He didn't need anybody to take the ball up the court for him then.

The importance of Eddie's shooting is undervalued, his hustle on defense is underrated, and his supposed lack of ball control is overhyped. Give the man some more minutes and more shots next year. Which brings me to my last point: please resign him.

[Chris]

Ummm, I think you need to go back and watch the tapes.  They were constantly running House off double and triple picks.  Unfortunately, when you have other guys who are not big offensive threats, it makes it easy to cheat off them, and make a guy like House, whose only real weapon is the catch and shoot ineffective.  Ray was able to get loose a little more from the same treatment because he was a good enough dribbler and finisher in the lane to make guys pay for overplaying the perimeter and jump out on him, but unfortunately, House just can't do that.

[nickagneta]

Yeah, Chris is, as he is most of the time, 100% correct about this. They ran screens for him all the time but due to the lack of offensive firepower on the court and the fact that Lee is simply a faster, taller, longer more physical player than Eddie, Eddie didn't have what it took to get the separation needed to get off his shot. He's very one dimensional and Orlando did a great job of limiting him after his one big game.

As for the Marbury comment, it could be argued that Marbury had an overall better series than Eddie did and deserved to be on the floor. Especially defensively, which is where Stephon did most of his subbing in for House.

[cordobes]

Courtney Lee is an extraordinary off-the-ball defender.