Max Kellerman said James Harden is a Choker in the Playoffs

Have the Rockets won a playoff series in the Harden era without home court advantage? I don't recall that happening.

That means every playoff series Harden has played in for our team has been won by the team with HCA, except when we lost to Portland that one year and the Warriors last year.

Big picture -- Harden hasn't really been a "choker", if "choker" means allowing your team to lose to a team you're supposed to beat (we were pretty evenly matched against the Blazers, and almost no one had us favored against the Warriors). But at the same time, he hasn't really had many big time, clutch playoff moments either which you expect from a player who is as good as he has been in the regular season. He is being given a big opportunity in the next round to recreate the narrative about his playoff career.

 

Harden was hitting high percentage of floaters this season until last month or so... his floaters are not going lately. Hope it changes from today.

 

Rudy Gobert is a tough guy to shoot a floater over.

 

I think the game against Spurs where Spurs were without Kawhi Leonard (2017 playoffs ) was a prime example of choking. He has improved significantly from that time but he needs to play big in playoffs against a team like GS to get rid of that label.



The other thing is his regular season performance is much better than his playoff performances... all great players usually have better performance at playoff or atleast similar performance.

 

That game against the Spurs is by far the most atrocious game he ever had, personally i'm convinced there was going on there, but if this is not true that was an absolute choke.

He did play well against the Warriors last season though, i don't see what he has to prove, if he doesn't beat the best team ever he's choking? I just refuse this, it's laughable that Harden is the only player that has to beat the best team ever to not be considered a choker.

 

That's the only thing close to a choke in Harden's Rockets career. No Parker in Game 5 and Kawhi had to sit out late in the 4th and all of OT and the Rockets came up short in large part because Harden settled for horrible long jumpers. And Game 6, he completely no showed.

Even 2014 doesn't rise to a level of choke. He played poorly most of that series, but the Rockets also had a horrible coaching performance by McHale and bonehead plays by Jeremy Lin that cost them games.

Some idiots in the press may point to the Harden-less comeback against the Clippers in Game 6 in 2015, but if I recall correctly, Harden had a triple double in Game 5 and came up big in Game 7. That's not a choke. Quite the opposite in fact.

 

Taking an All-star team to a 7 game series, with last two games without CP, was not enough of a narrative?

That was the closest anyone has come to taking out a fully loaded Warriors team and most likely would have had CP not gone down.

This is the same team Lebron would lose to every year. The year with No Durant and suspended Green does not count, the very same year Curry and Klay choked a 3-1 lead.

 

50 point game incoming for Harden.

 

Bring the Noise

 

Harden's game was not even close to being "ghastly." Jeez, we much be in different worlds.

 

The Rocket blew big leads in the final two games of the series, and he had perhaps his worst shooting game of the year in game 5 while we gutted out the win (to his credit, but more so to the team's credit).

No, that wasn't enough.

 

Well I think Max Kellerman contributes nothing to the human race. So there.

 

max kellerman can choke on deez nuts

 

He didn’t choke game 3... he scored 14 points in the 4th quarter...and won lol. That’s literally the opposite of choking.

 

Max Kellerman is not a Rockets or Harden hater.. he picked Houston against GS last year..he still defends his pick . Plus he is saying that Rockets has a chance to beat GS this year if Harden hits his shots...

 

Don’t post thread titles like this on Clutchfans.

And please, no more replies to this thread.

0 stars.

 

The floater is Harden’s midrange shot and he shoots like 5 or 6 a game. He had a bad shooting night but an otherwise great game.

Most importantly, he didn’t let his shooting effect his production in any other facet of the game. He responded like a pro.

 

Blew the lead to a team of All-stars with the only other star on the team out injured. Of course the Warriors were going to make a run in the third quarter. Thats what they had been doing the entire year.

I dont see how that is choking. Falling short sure. But definitely not choking.

Like I said, by the same standards, Lebron is a bigger choker.

 

they both have multiple rings, how is that a relevant comparison?

Harden has had some historically terrible playoff performances, particularly for a player as great as he. until he wins a chip, that will always be the knock on him. it's not blasphemy to bring it up, it just is what it is.

 

Are you talking about what he said in December?