I'm having a hard time finding any humor or optimism this morning. sure as hell hope Harden rises to the challenge with a historic performance
im actually devastated that this happened to him. hes given hou everything hes got to this point. you shouldn't be punished for wanting to win this badly
I'll try Harden tied the record for most 3 shot without a make and the Rockets won Paul was a -13 last night Luc is a normal rotation player and a full beast. Road Ryan! Eric has proven he can be a starter and is the X Factor! And mostly it's Houstons time!
I love your optimism and I want to believe but man I am really having a hard time shaking that Paul injury from my brain. Beard - silence the doubt in our mind!
I was at a bar for the game. Place going crazy, high-fiving, cheering. And there i stood silently. The fleeting feeling of pure joy being up 3-2 up on the world champs juxtaposed by the injury to our point god with 22 seconds left in the game. My hope has not faltered, but my heart cannot accept any joy yet.
In order to win without CP3, we'll need to see MVP James Harden make an appearance along with LRMAM bouncing back and being the key role player he was during the regular season. He's the only guy that can defend well enough to keep the Warriors from going off among those left on the bench. If his shoulder is right he can hit some 3's too and be like a second Trevor Ariza out there.
Weird feeling this morning for sure. It's all just pure hope now. I can try optimism like ... our defense won't take much of a hit (assuming Luc is perfectly fine on that end), so Harden only needs to lead a 100pt game apparently. But then I think what we will look like for even just 4-6 minutes with no point guard on the court, and fall back to pure hope...and clinging to posts like this
The only concern I have is ball handling. I don't have a lot of confidence in anybody but Harden handling the ball and directing the offense. And I don't have a lot of confidence in Harden at the end of games. It also means Harden will resort to slacking on defense to save energy for the offense. But both teams are tired and will be missing shots. I don't expect that to change.
The Rockets are a veteran team with talent on the bench not playing in this series. Joe Johnson is one guy that is known as a big time playoff performer and will be ready at a moment’s notice. Maybe Luc gets the pep talk of his life and he gets out of the mental funk his injured shoulder has caused? Perhaps Road Ryno shows up and can be passable defensively? Also, they’ve proven they can win with cutting and ball movement in this series. They can do it again. Point is, without CP3, the Rockets can still win this series. They need one team win in the next two games. That’s it. Will it be harder without CP3? Of course. But they have the ability to do it.
I hate how people say “it’s on Harden now” or this is his chance to step up. It’s actually on whoever plays alongside Harden. It’s really easy for the Warriors to shut out James if no one else can make plays. We don’t need Harden to score 40 to win. We need EG to be a solid playmaker and the Arizas and Greens to make buckets.
Gordon being the spare playmaker is iffy when he has to think about passing and scoring. I think they might get Ariza to share some touches like game two. I'm anxious about harden being locked on for the whole time, but it's not like he hasn't done it before in previous years. If the refs give him something to call on, that's half the mental load. Without Chris, worriers will build walls around the three point line and leave a sagging person to anchor the paint. They'll dare James, Eric and Gerald to drive in while pushing our shooters away from their sweet spots. But they will get taken care of. Those shooters will have to be ready to take open "uncomfortable" shots. Next man up.
actually it starts with him and yes harden is going to need to have an mvp game to give hou any chance of winning without cp3 hou without cp3, the ceiling gets lowered drastically.
CP3 injury is fake. It is strategic psychological warfare to change Warriors mindset and strategy. CP3 mindgame master.
