Gotta hand it to ya you are an optimist, but I’m not buying that he’s coming back bro he looked worse tonight than the night before almost disinterested for alarming lengths of time, that coming on a horrible night against LAC on Thurs. The system has been decoded pretty easily, make these scrub 3 pt shooters on this team make shots and shut down the driving lanes to Russ and Harden. Those shooters are actively passing up shots to defer to Harden or Russ as the clock winds down. Russ will get frustrated by not getting to the hoop cleat or FTs, and Harden will just settle and start chucking contested 3s and its worked beautifully 4 straight games to the point where this has to be the longest stretch of games where we have been down double digits leads EARLY in games and lost by the largest margins we have. We don’t have the players to run this system an entire game but now we are stuck with it and it’s not working for either of our stars well at all. Maybe I’m overreacting again but I don’t think so, a 4 games sample size of blowout losses (remember the Knicks game we were down double digits all game until the final few mins) is telling to me ... not all on Harden but he has played pretty average the last several weeks and has several very poorly games.
This, and 1... Daryl Morey. Bill Simmons called it after the Capela trade... Tilman getting a hard lesson in running a business, laden with giant paychecks and giant egos, restaurant-style...
Also to add insult to injury, I think the refs are completely screwing us. Notice how we can't breathe on guys but Harden nor Westbrook are getting obvious calls. The NBA is taking out its anger on us I believe for the China debacle, Morey's criticism of announcers, and Harden criticizing Giannis's MVP. They are sick of the Rockets but I do think we have legit criticisms of the NBA
I kind of feel for Jeff Green. Not much game-time champion-level heart but seems a genuinely nice family guy who is craving stability at this point of his life. Might make for a decent after-NBA story when all is said and done; maybe a character-guy HS coach.
I don't see it as a coincidence that Harden has been on a rough patch for a while through this slump, and tonight, against a shitty EC team, just lost it the same day OKC beat Celtics to steal the 4th seed from us. This team has taken on the nature of Russell Westbrook. We play well against the best teams, and lose embarrassingly to the worst ones. It happened the exact same way when RW played for OKC. To me, Harden is looking at everything and saying he's done enough to carry this joke of a team, and now the team needs to make up for the weight they put on his shoulders. To me, this is completely understandable. I have 0 problems with giving Harden some kind of rest to prep for the playoffs because that's all anyone cares about. I do have a problem with the amount of leaning on RW we do. He isn't Harden, nor Klay, nor Steph, so we can't expect him to pass or shoot or defend as well as they do. But taking RW and Harden out of any equation makes this team good enough to beat only certain bench teams (just my eye test). Tldr, we need to trade for another superstar next season. This season already looks like a wash when the game plan isn't being executed on the court. The team is fully ready to move on from MDA.
All I know is harden got benched and grounded on a beautiful saturday afternoon on yesterday! He mighta got left in charlotte! There was a definite exchange of words!
I 100% believe this as well added to the fact that the small valley lineup threatens the clippers vs lakers western conference finals they want
Nah man @D-rock figured it out, 3>2. We good! The likes of NBA veterans around the league can’t compete with our CF genius..
Trying to play small ball with Harden as our best player is what’s wrong. Iso player Dribbles too much Too slow Bad decision maker Careless turnovers Not an efficient shooter Spams way too many 3’s Doesn’t create well enough for teammates Tell me how wrong I am. Tell me how great Harden is. Tell me how we’re so lucky to have him. Call me a Lin fan. I love that ****.
Very telling Tucker is mentioning this as surely guys are pointing fingers, starting with James Harden on the court. Jeff Green is right, but not entirely. What I believe to be true is we've always relied very much on offense to win games for us since Harden, McHale and now MDA have had their focus on that side of the ball. Our winning streak was our offense clicking sure, but our defense was incredible. So we're starting to see our underlying problem coming back, which is the mentality of offense will win us games and not defense first. This has been my issue with MDA and Harden for ages now. We've seen Harden play defense, probably some of the best of his career lately, but you cannot undo years of having a mentality where defense meant very little.
That's the thing. They don't care enough about defense. They know their defense has to be good (in their minds it has to be top 10 in the league.) I hate that mentality. Attempt to be the best defense in the league with a mentality that your offense has to be top 10 in the league then you have the correct philosophy to win championships. But... they will do what they want to do. A hard head makes a soft a$$. Soft a$$' equate to a bunch of prideful guys that end up not giving a F and just collecting checks.
I've been watching NBA games since the early 80's. Whatever is happening out there that's making our guys under perform does not appear to be x and o's. Something is happening that's affecting the team cause we are not even competitive with scrubby teams anymore. This is very strange.
Please makeup an injury for Harden and let him sit out 14 days for rest and see what he does. His body is telling him, he's trash right now and needs a break. Just like Ego.
