Grade James Harden's overall performance against the Jazz. Private poll and you can't change your vote
By his standards, B-/C+, but I will go ahead and give him a B because of his overall play (defense and performing in 4th quarter of game 2 and 5 even when struggling) Disappointing on offense overall. Those shooting % are bad. Really bad shooting in some of the games. Overall, was brilliant only in game 1. However, he didnt stop trying on defense, and fought more than he has been in the past. In the past he would have laid a complete dud. Bottom line: He needs to bring his B+, A-, or A offense for us to go all the way. These duds on offense will not get the job done against teams that can actually make baskets.
B. Jazz's defensive strategy slowed down Harden. It limited fouls on Harden and his overall efficiency regarding shots around the basket, floaters, and 3 pointers.
I gave him a C. He played well in games 1 & 2 but showed why he is often criticized as a playoff choker in games 3 4 and 5.
B He’s playing well defensively even when playing with fouls. He wasn’t getting calls that everyone else in the other series is receiving and it’s affecting his game mentally. He shouldn’t let this effect his play and cut down on the turnovers. Also, he needs to learn to box out well or at least get a body on someone for each possession.
B He showed composure and mental toughness to push through poor shooting nights and found other ways to impact the game. He definitely stepped up on the defensive end. Morey and D’Antoni need to reincorporate Harden’s mid range game into the offense. It was almost automatic in previous years with McHale. And the added versatility will improve his consistency.
I picked A, although I'd prefer to say A-. He did have a terrible first 3 1/2 quarters in Game 3 and a bad first half of Game 5, but he came on strong in closing both of those. Couple that with his triple double in Game 2 and solid all-around Game 1 performance and it was a pretty good series all things considered. He didn't get to the line much. The Jazz were keying on him all series and essentially denying him the 3-pointer while funneling him into the paint where Rudy Gobert was waiting. And he still came through. That stepback 3 late in Game 3 and the floaters and strip on Gobert in the 4th last night were all huge and essential plays in both wins.
C relative to himself and my high expectation of him. Great in G1, 2. G3 was solid. G4 was poor, but half of that was Capela couldn't walk. G5... He played timid, and yet turn it over like he was drunk to start game 5. Game shouldn't have been close if he played just avg at the start.
Why. We made it out, with a gentleman's sweep. All that you could've ask for to make this that much sweeter is the actual sweep.... but even so, we still have a bit of extra time to prepare for the Warriors. Thanks Bev, Trez, and Lou Will!!!! Forever Rockets
C - shooting percentages were too garbage...I was happy with his defense 28, 7, and 8 on 37/35/86 shooting splits while taking 23 shots a game to go along with almost 6 turnovers game is not getting higher than a C from me
A. Yeah, poor shooting percentage, but this is the best defensive team in the league and he get the job done on both ends of the floor.
When an entire team solely focuses on stopping you, including inventing **** defenses, and you still impact the game and get W's... That's a A+ for me!
Rockets have got to figure out the butt defense or more teams will start to use it. It really does seem to fluster him.
This fan base astonishes me. All the media bias has gotten to the fans perspective. Dude was an A and balled his guts out. Utah imployed a scheme that did everything in its power to stop all shots at the rim. I know everyone thinks priority 1 for Utah was stopping Harden, but I think priority 1 was stopping the Capela lob like we saw last year with gsw. Priority 2 was stop the floater/drive. Harden was awesome games 1 and 2. Game 3 he couldnt make a shot but battled like a summbiitch and came up clutch while making the correct play all game. Game 5 was qnother great effort and great showing where he played very good defense like he did all series long. Game 4 he was only ok but that's because Capela was not right and it took away 1 of his main attacks. While important, people get WAAAAAY too caught up in shooting %s of a series which is a very small sample size. Even more so when people look at 1 game samples. Especially against likely the best defense in the league where you should expect a drop. Tl;dr? Dude was an A, yall trippin...
I wish we could figure out a way to get Harden open shots, but Harden is not open to the idea of moving without the ball. I'm not saying he has to be Steph or Klay out there, but if he just moved a little when Paul is dribbling maybe we can find him an open shot or two. He's usually really good at converting wide open looks.
That new innovative defense is defending the player behind Harden and giving him a wide open mid range. It's not the most flattering d buddy. It's basically telling him "you're Ben Simmons of the mid range". It would be akin to just packing the paint on Giannis and just not bothering to gaurd him at all when he isn't in the paint because he's not a good shooter. It ain't flattering defense and it's a defense that says "your game is one dimensional".
It's probably somewhere between a B and an A. He struggled at times with his shot, but he played good defense for the most part (had some terrible off-ball defense where they were bailed out by wide open misses) and had clutch moments. He put the clamps on in the clutch in game 5, he went nuts in the clutch in Game 4... He did well. He'll have to be much better to beat the Warriors. We'll need an A+
