It's that simple. I love Harden like I loved Hakeem when I first saw him Dreamshake Robinson in the playoffs. Life is too short not to appreciate when you see an all-time great clutch performance in a Rockets uniform. I saw The Dream and now I've witnessed The Beard. I could die a happy man tonight. Some day Clutchfans will write ballads about this night when James Harden began his legendary championship run.
Harden has taken his game to the next level. He is literally on a mission. This playoffs is where he places himself into the very upper echelon of stars to ever play the game
Used to make excuses for McGrady the first couple of yrs he was here. We're lucky to have a player like him.
Absolutely one of the best playoff fourth quarter performances of all time! He had 12-13 straight points with an assist thrown in there, unbelievable! If it was Kobe, Lebron or some other media darling they would be all over this no doubt!
There was one tonight that was egregiously 3 steps. No way on earth the referees couldn't have counted the steps. But they're all thinking (or the league office is thinking, and telling them) "Man, that's just too pretty to call."
I don't understand why bums like Francis, McGrady, and Lin with their mediocre results get deified in this board and yet youget an actual god like Harden who saves us from the seemingly endless treadmill of mediocrity and delivers us the most success we've had since the Dream's era and yet he gets so much disrespect. It's beyond blasphemous.
Harden was nothing short of AMAZING!!! OP is right folks, enjoy his performance. Players like Harden are generational players. Thank you, Presti.
This was against jimmy butler who after roberson and Kwahi is the best perimeter defender in the NBA. He was abusing him with physical play
Welcome to the club man It's either the Lin or khardashian fiascos that turned people off to him. Maybe Dwightmare for dofs? In all that time I always thought he peaked, and he proves me and everyone else wrong. Now I'm just spoiled and I expect him to improve in the off-season. I don't think I've ever seen that with any other Rocket where they've made the spotlight and then grows even better the next year. Dream was always nasty and I think age just made him smarter with the passing and help defense There was only one off season, after he got players MVP and showed up to camp out of shape, that he didn't improve like years before, yet he was still a freaking top five player. His improvement is always filthy, and the way he gets back into training after games would be considered a sickness for almost any other job. Oh yeah his moves are okay.
I remember a couple of years back when answering a reporter's question, he declared he was the best player in the NBA. A lot of people thought he was delusional and to be fair, he hadn't reached that point yet, but still, no one seriously believed he would ever become the best player in the NBA, myself included. I think he has reached that point now.
greatest improvement in his game since last year was morey getting a legit 2nd playmaker to stop opponents from double/triple teaming harden and allowing him to rest and capela maturing to play like an all-star night in night out and getting a good defensive core of tucker and lmm all those 5 previous playoffs harden been playing 1 V 5 offensively during the season its 3 (with capela & cp3) V 5 last night was still 2.5 (half a cp3) V 5
harden was unstoppable and hit some really tough shots, all around super-impressive performance that very few players in the history of basketball could ever pull off ^_^
What lin fiasco? there was no fiasco. Harden is a superstar and will go down as one of the top 5 SG's ever so you expected him to play off a career role paying journeyman like lin?