You know how people like to claim that Harden would not be scoring this many points if he didn't get free throws? What do you think they will say now?
They will say refs let him inflate his scoring during regular season. Record breaking is good for the league. I wish they would ref both playoffs and regular season the same.
Wow. Great job, Koperboy. That stat is indefensible, especially considering how elite Harden is at drawing fouls. The comparison to Curry is absurd.
How much of this is the defense being played against him? He's being funneled into the paint where a lot of times the primary defender is not even trying to stop his penetration and he tosses up a lob or a floater before he can get fouled by someone like Gobert. It'll be interesting to see if they change the defense and how it affects the FT's. Also, it's only been 2 games. There have been plenty of games during the season where he didn't get double-digit free throws. Doesn't mean the NBA had something against him at the time. The average doesn't guarantee outcome. The one move I thought they'd tag him on repeatedly in the playoffs (if there was a revenge motive for the refs) is that one he started using where he bumps off the defender to open up space for a shot.
Stay Alert, Clutchfans. Harden's drop in FTAs is by design of the defense. Rubio even mentioned it in the post-game interview. Bucks are also on record saying "No Fouls" is a primary purpose of the defense. Taking away the Harden step-back, and creating an ICE Wall to reduce his passing are the others as @Dr of Dunk said, you Shade the left arm to take the 3 away, and you allow the drive to reduce fouls
I think anyone who watched Game 1 agrees Harden could have made at least three more trips to the line. Also some fouls called on him were downright hilarious, like Gobert tripping over Harden's foot...
There really haven't been enough games played to make too much of it, I guess, but I think it's worth keeping an eye on going forward. What tripped me out was looking at the early playoff defensive rankings. Utah, a terrific regular season defensive team, is 15th out of the 16 teams in net defense. We're 3rd. It's just 2 games, at least for the Rockets and Jazz, but it's fun to look at. Boston is 1st and Brooklyn is last.
heard this recently James Harden in isolation: 1.12 points per 100 possessions average half court offense: 0.95 points/100 average isolation possession: 0.9 points/100 Harden running a typically very inefficient play type much more than anyone else in the league produces 17 more points per 100 possessions than your average half court offense...insane
I get what you’re saying, but what this post actually says is he scores 0.17 more points per 100 I think you meant to say per possession
Not just that but how often Harden gets to the paint compared to Curry. No way that Curry's play style generates more fta than Harden.
yeah...meant to say 1.12/possession, .95/possession, and .9/possession it was early in the morning lol
They're just going to say "clearly he's not being aggressive and is choking. Curry gets all of those playoff free throws because his aggressiveness goes over 9000." There's no arguing with a shapeshifter.
Harden repeatedly gets run over by gobert after his floaters, especially in the first game. He didn’t get a single call and i think not getting the calls affected his floaters a bit and forcing James to do longer floaters. Refs have definitely swallowed the whistle a bit against him