Jeremy Lin: Despite Injuries And Shooting Woes, Houston Rockets Guard's NBA Playoffs Debut Shows Flashes of Promise (Video)

This probably wasn't the playoff debut that Jeremy Lin or his fans had in mind.

With the way that Lin was playing between March and April, when his shot was falling and he was looking more fluid out on the hardwood, it gave the Houston Rockets good reason to hope for big things with the NBA playoffs just around the corner.

Lin was shooting 44.0 percent in the last nine games of the month of April, averaging 17.3 points with 6.9 assists, looking more like the confident guard that the Rockets were hoping that he would become.

Then the playoffs started. And Lin just hasn't been able to take off. In Game 1 of the Rockets' series with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Lin's shots were reduced, but he wasn't making the most of the seven shots that he did have, shooting only 1-for-7 from the field, including going 0-for-4 from three-point range.

Then came a fateful Game 2. In 20 minutes of playing time, Lin hit 3-of-7 from the field with three assists in the first half, but during that time, he bruised his right chest painfully thanks to Thunder guard and tough defender Thabo Sefolosha and was in so much pain attempting to shoot that he was taken out of the second half of the game, which the Rockets lost 105-102 to the Thunder to drop to 0-2 in the series.

In Game 3, fresh off Thunder guard Russell Westbrook's season-ending injury thanks to a botched steal attempt by Rockets guard Patrick Beverley, Lin took what appeared to be a payback shot from OKC star Kevin Durant, who tapped Lin's injured chest in a steal attempt similar to the play where Westbrook was hurt.

Visibly struggling to shoot, Lin went a mere 1-for-6 from the field to finish with two points before he sat out after playing only 18 minutes.

Ill-timed injuries, shooting woes and a Thunder defense that seemed to know just how to stop the flow of the Rockets offense all combined for Lin to average only 4.3 points on 25 percent shooting in the postseason. It's hardly been a glorious playoff debut for the man who captured a legion of fans worldwide last year during his breakout season in New York.

With the series not likely to last much longer, it's all in all likely that a healthy Lin won't be getting much more of a chance to fully showcase if he can improve. But there have been some positives in Lin's first foray into postseason basketball. Despite an injury that obviously caused him great discomfort and threw him off his game, Lin showed a toughness by continuing to play through the pain. It might not have been enough to help the Rockets beat a much deeper, more experienced Thunder squad, but the symbolism of having all of their pieces there likely helped the Rockets keep their poise and go harder at Oklahoma City, who were visibly missing the 20-plus points that Westbrook provided and struggled to beat Houston after Game 1.

And prior to the injury, Lin was starting to string together a respectable first half in Game 2. He was looking more comfortable in the Rockets' three-guard offense while they started to create all kinds of problems for OKC to match up with. Had he stayed on pace and not sustained the injury, Lin could have likely scored 14 points or more for the game-which would have been big, considering that Houston lost Game 2 by only three points.

Of course, there's no point in crying over spilled milk. Lin got hurt, the Rockets lost those games, life goes on. But given the injury that limited his minutes in the playoffs thus far, this can't be seen as an accurate look at what Lin can do in the playoffs. He looked like he was starting to improve before his untimely chest wound. In a way, the playoffs were a microcosm of Lin's up-and-down season with the Rockets--he showed his struggles, and had his rough starts and patches, but he also showed flashes of promises. If we had to grade Lin's playoff performance thus far, it would have to be an "incomplete." Not enough information was around to make a final determination as to what kind of postseason player Lin is. But the bright spots in his performance give enough hope for what we might expect of him in the next postseason.