No, the right play is to burn the other team every single time you have a 4 on 3 advantage. If you can't trust your teammates to take advantage of a 4 on 3 situation then you won't beat the Warriors. Also, Harden is not a transcendent athlete, he is not going go 1 on 5 ala Kobe or Lebron and he knows it. He's quick, but not fast. People on this board expecting him to just dominate other teams need to realize it's not going to happen. Harden does what he can with what he has. Now, should D'antoni have game-planned better and had CP3 bring the ball up and get Harden the rock via off-ball motion? Sure, but that's a wrinkle they need to have and be willing to go to in crunch time. Either way, Rockets scored well in closing Game 5 but couldn't get it done defensively. In game 6 they came in without enough juice and didn't put the Warriors away quickly, allowing Curry an opportunity to close the game, and that's more of a teamwide disappointment honestly.
Man I'm with you. it's just too much to whine and argue for James Harden when he just sh-ts all over you. After sticking up for this dude during pick up games, in staff meetings, on youtube/twitter/reddit, at family cookouts, Harden got me walking around these streets like:
are steph, klay, kawhi, and cj transcendent athletes? it didn't stop them from just taking over when their own team needed it
Harden has been disappointing this post season. When you average less points and assists and shoot a worse percentage in the playoffs than in the regular season you are not elevating your game like a superstar.
SMH Harden can't dominate teams? The Harden putting up 60pt triple doubles? The Harden scoring 30pts for months straight? Harden has had no athleticism and no lungs since birth and still harden dominated teams with his mind alone. Stop it. Stop it right now. This boy steph curry just missed a dunk on a fisher price goal and you talking about transcendent athletes not being required to dominate.
Hey, you do know that if you are shooting a lot of 3's your FG percentage should be down even if you are actually more efficient. If you are going to whine, can you at least put some thought into it?
We played Curry straight up a few possessions because he hadn't been shooting well all series and got burned. Then, we trapped him and as a result, got burned by Klay. As fast as Curry is he didn't try to split the double in crunch time either, trusted his teammates and made us pay. The Rockets lost Games 5 and 6 largely due to rebounding, lack of force/hustle, and an inability to get late 4th quarter stops. As for CJ, you couldn't double him on that last play because the Blazers had 5 shooters on the floor and they didn't try to run pick n roll. It's also generally tough to double CJ since Dame would likely gain an advantage. Kawhi is a legit athlete, maybe not in the same class as Kobe or Jordan but he can definitely jump, proved it with that final shot over Embiid. I'm not going to say that Harden has never failed to live up to his potential over the entire playoff career, he has on numerous occasions. But this last series was not one of them. The lack of length, quality size, and rebounding were greater issues.
nice try there. very much missing a ton of what went on in all the games referenced. but coming from someone who thinks a player who puts up 60 pt triple doubles and doesnt consider that dominate, there's not much you can say
harden played well this post season. kawhi had enough rest. TONS OF REST. Warriors RODE KD this post season and looked what happened to him. you expect a player being rode like a work horse all season long to not get tired in the play offs and have a couple of off nights compared to players that can rest because they know their teammates can carry the load while he is gone. when boogie went down its nothing. when kd went down its just time for the splash brothers to take care of business. if harden goes down were ****ed. and its not even play off ****ed its regular season ****ed. You know the difference between harden and other superstars... raptors, sixers bucks gsw can survive the season even if their SUPER STAR BEST PLAYER RESTS or on some load management bull. Can capela still function without harden? will cp3 take over and not get injured if harden had to miss ten games? raptors are functioning well with kawhi on restricted minutes. Harden is no LEBRON. Lol sometimes maybe having a superstars with lingering injury works to some teams advantage cause atleast the GM surrounds him with tough guys that can take over in the regular season. unlike harden who is so tough so lets surround him with players with injury issues or aging.
Everyone knows those ridiculous stat lines don't really work against good defenses, especially over the course of 7 games against elite teams. But I agree that you have a point, Harden can and does control many games just through his sheer decision making prowess, but the margins are so slim against a team like Golden State that I don't believe there is any 1 player that can dominate the Warriors. And also, because Harden is such a cerebral player like you said, he will make the pass out of that trap most of the time. In fact, he probably views it as a good thing that players are doubling him near half-court, it gives his teammates way more space to work with. The only possible exception to a single player dominating the Warriors, and it's a big if, is Giannis. We'll have to wait and see for that though. They'll still need an onslaught of 3 pointers to keep up, even with him playing well.
Another lin fan troll with multiple ids taking out his frustrations out in this thread. Dude harden didn’t make lin into A scrub
Look, I went through some actual plays and broke them down, so not sure what you would like me to address. But the real overriding argument that makes everything I discussed meaningless is that all of those teams that lost today in "clutch situations" are vastly inferior to the Warriors, with or without KD. The Warriors have a number of excellent perimeter wing defenders that make it tough on anyone, we'll see how CJ and Kawhi do against the Warriors. Then after they dominate and win you can tell me I'm wrong.
Freaking Kawhi score 41 points on 39 shots he pkayed like CRAP so get put of here with the difference between Harden and other superstars last i checked none of them are being game planned for like James Harden they dont get doubled nowhere near as much as Harden so all of this cry baby Crap yall be doing and complaining look at what the man has to do for this team to be successful whether he walks up the court are sprint up the court he is a great player and i happen to think he is the best at what he do he got the entire NBA game planning defenses to stop him i don't see that happening with any other player so STFU
i dont need to wait for anything to tell you you're wrong. right now, is as good a time as any. players all across the league are showing examples of what its like to have that killer instinct necessary in the playoffs. doesn't even really matter to me. so long as this team remains as is, the same results will happen next year and the same discussion will be had over and over and over about postseason play.
Hardens issue has never been his ability to put up good numbers and have good percentages and all that. I think the best analogy for him is a baseball analogy. In baseball there’s a lot of emphasis put on high leverage situations, and specifically for pitchers, high leverage pitches. Harden is a guy who Is often dominant, but when the situation is of the highest leverage, his play becomes ineffective. He’s like a pitcher who you know has nasty stuff and can get guys out, but if it’s the eighth inning with the bases-loaded you know is going to give up that big hit. Harden gives up the big hit, consistently.
If you want the Rockets to play with more force and tenacity I can agree with that. I myself am in the camp we need a new HC that can inject some more "nasty" into this team. We need that in addition to some more talent. But if you want to pin this series loss on James Harden where he led both teams in scoring then go ahead. All the other players you brought up played in situations where it was more or less a fair fight. Like it or not, the Warriors out-talent the Rockets with or without KD. The Rockets just do a good job consistently overachieving with their volume 3 pt shooting and defensive switching scheme. James can always be better, but expecting him to be everything for this team is unreasonable. Would've been nice to get some more contributions from Clint, CP, House, etc
That step-back three was negated in the first game. The step back causes defender to jump towards the shooter. That also increases your potential for max points. When that becomes a point of conflict, it takes you completely out of the game. Your confidence goes down. It’s straight run of the mill manipulation. Allow moving screens, don’t allow moving screens. Euronstep, euro step back, call 3 seconds, don’t call 3 seconds. The game is already completely manipulated. It’s just now a narrative.
So long as he limits himself to 0 killer instinct in the playoffs, he’ll never win a ship being the #1 guy. You can take that however you want as far as series/big games or whatever in the postseason. The track record speaks for itself.
I agree with this and it happens every year. He needs to give up his too cool for school loner attitude and maybe he’ll be marketable enough by the NBA/Disney to give him a championship. As of now, he’s talented, but he’s not useful for marketing. He’ll, they’re even touting a Giannis, whose in the East, is better than Harden. You put him and the Bucks in the West and see what happens.
