The loss was on McHale, but for different reasons.

That loss at Dallas was certainly on McHale, but it's more about in-game adjustment, or lacking thereof; than the "proper usage" of Lin, in this particular game. McHale was simply out-coached.

Bear in mind, Lin's offense was poor in those limited 17 minutes. No, it's not his norm, and no, the loss is not on Lin. Albeit everyone is prone to a stinker every now and then, that was still a bad performance. 

Before we pull the party line among us supporters, raving about how Lin makes a great floor general and how his shooting percentage is dramatically improved this season, we need to realize this might be true in general, but it had NOTHING to do with this particular game.

Lin didn't act like a floor general, and he hesitated a lot, played uninspired, and wasn't aggressive at all in the game. His 0-5 shooting wasn't pretty either. But was Rockets offense gone down the toilette, because the only "qualified" and "rightful" PG struggled? It didn't. It could be an outlier, but the ball wasn't sticky, and assist numbers were pretty high. Offense was actually clicking - as evidence, they scored 120 points. 

You normally have to win away games if you can score 100+ points, and you almost MUST win away games if you score 120 points. Offense wasn't the problem, but defense was. McHale failed in that game. A simple double team on a few occasions, and/or something really simple, called "denying the ball" for hot hands, would have done all the trick and wonder for that game. 

Correlation doesn't make it causation. It wasn't fair to remove Lin from the starting line up, and it also wasn't optimal for Lin that he sometimes had to play out of his comfort zone or style, but that wasn't the reason for the loss. Clearly, nor was Lin's 1 point outcome the reason for the loss.

That gentleman would have made a better argument and sent out cleared message, if he had chosen NOT to mix those separate topics regarding that ugly loss.