While I agree that the word "Quit" is probably the wrong word choice to describe what Harden does in crunch time playoff moments... the fact is, that there really isn't any "one word" description that properly describes it. I think the main idea that most people are trying to get across is that Harden doesn't elevate his play, or rise to the occasion... in crucial moments, in critical playoff games. The gist of what most people are saying is... that Harden is not a clutch player, and that he lacks the kind of killer instinct that "most" NBA champions have.
Had no idea Stephen Jackson was like that. As good as Meta World Peace is, he is actually complete trash compared to Rivers and Tucker. Yet Jackson defends him. To think of it what were Jackson's playoff performances like? Poop. That is an awkward situation for Rivers. An idiot analyst that completely trashes you for no reason other then hate hate hate. Let's all go to Twitter to support Rivers and Tucker..
Here is Austin hinting to the fact that our system works in regular season. But does not in the playoffs. Morey should definitely look into adding more ball movement into the offense and making it less of a 1’on1 game. If your players are saying it. Maybe you should change something @J.R.
Amen to all of that. It's refreshing to see someone else saying these things, especially when it seems like people always want to go on the attack whenever anyone criticizes Harden or TMac for their lack of desire to win. It's just the simple truth... and it's the difference between winning and losing sometimes.
you can pretty much get that, alot of guys were frustrated and understandably so. Sucks that they assumed GS was just going to essentially lay down after kd went out.
lol refreshing, people say that about Harden all the time on here. This opinion you quoted (and its a bad one imo) is nothing new on here. At least for the time I have been here.
I’m trying to put game 5 and 6 out of my head and just focus on the future. Austin’s honesty is very telling. I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought they should have seized the moment and won either game 5 or 6. I’m not touching the Harden/iso stuff. I’ll just say that his comments about a coach being fired and his mention of CP and EG were interesting.
i think its good to hear stuff like this. you get a feel of what truly was going on with the team instead of a bunch of assumptions everyone likes to do. Them anticipating GS was going to basically lay down stood out to me. hated to hear that. you would think by now this team would realize this is still a team we've been trying to beat for years now. they're not just going to give us the game
The whole world expect rockets to win game 5 or 6. Need to figure out, so won’t happen again in future. How to beat them without boogie.
It was nice knowing you Austin. Us not living up to the moment & taking advantage of the situation we had. Their best player gets hurt, our team is fully healthy. We had Chris. Everyone made the excuse for them last year. We didn't take advantage. It's all on us. SJ: "I didn't see it in James." -- No comment from Rivers (MK: Your best player in the biggest moments hasn't come through. Why?) It's an abundance of things. Our playing style, everything is through him. That's what our offense is designed to do. The way we play is for him to do the things he does. That's a very hard thing to do in the playoffs. You're talking a team mostly based out of one-on-one vs a team with the best ball movement, possibly ever. That's a bad matchup. If you look at our roster vs. theirs with KD out, it's not even close. Their bench is nowhere near the talent we had. Their best players can score without dribbling the ball. [...] We didn't make the proper adjustments. The consensus in the locker room is 2-2, we came back in that game 5 and KD goes down. That first timeout after, everyone in the huddle was like 'This is it, this is our chance. We have to take it.' They kept playing. We expected game 6, we come out, punch them in the mouth, they'll quit/fold and they'll be like 'Alright, we'll try to get game 7.' We came and messed around. It went downhill from there. (CP3/Harden feud/altercation) Never happened. I don't care. I wouldn't lie about it. I don't know where it came from. There was no altercation. That never happened. If it did happened, it was behind closed doors because that loss in game 6 was so deflating. No one said anything after the game. We didn't bring it in. We just gave this one away. Everyone was in the locker room and went their seperate ways. There was no altercation. (MK: When you say everything runs through Harden, has this system gone as far as it can?) I think it works. We have to mix it up. We have to do a better job mixing it up. It works to a certain degree. What we're doing works but when you play a team, you have to mix up things. (SAS: You have a coach who is a damn good coach if you want to win regular season games but if you're trying to get over the hump and capture a championship, you can't run your offense through one individual as he has elected to do.) From a player's perspective, everyone's dream is to play for Mike. There is no wrong shot. Mike literally lets you do what ever you want. (SAS: He'll bench you for not shooting) AR: 100% or [for taking] midrange. In today's day & age, players have so much control. A coach can only do so much. Now if a coach & player get into it, the coach gets fired. That's the way it is. Mike can only do so much. James is doing what he feels everybody wants to do. It's tough. You have guys like Chris Paul & Eric Gordon and other guys here waiting trying to we feel like help even more but our system is designed around it. Everyone is trying to figure out how do we change this, who do we talk to? It was frustrating.
It's not the exact quote, or the specific words necessarily that I was referencing. It's more the idea in general. It is refreshing to me though, because I honestly feel like I see much more defending of Harden and TMAC, and see a lot more apologists for them in the forums. (granted, I don't read through very many threads, admittedly) But I do think the point of that particular post was spot on. Reminds me of the Bruce Lee quote to the young pupil in the beginning of Enter the Dragon, when Bruce slaps the boy on top of the head and says, "Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory." Pay attention to bigger picture, the bigger message.
I thought Austin's comments were great and honest. We definitely need a system change. I agree with Austin's assessment that Harden is simply doing what the Rockets have asked of him. Harden has shown himself to be a very coachable player (too coachable in my opinion). I remember before this whole push to eliminate the midrange, Harden would often post up and stop at 10-12 feet for an open shot. Now he rarely does that. But all that isn't the say that Harden is 100% blameless. I firmly believe that if he pushed back against the Rockets push to make everything about him, things would change. I do agree that part of the problem is that he likes being able to shoot whenever.....but what player doesn't. I think a larger part of the problem is that Harden's too coachable. Outside of McHale, and that took forever, I haven't known him to stand up to a coach. Harden seems to have always followed Morey and MDA's guidance without much question. As for CP3 being able to do more.....idk about that one honestly. I'm sure Paul wanted to do more and probably felt he could. But the fact that he had significantly fewer touches that Harden but only 5 less total turnovers don't bode well. A player with an assist to turnover ratio of 1.9 isn't really doing much to justify more touches. Maybe it was just a down year, maybe it's the system that's causing Paul to struggle but I think the elephant in the room is just his decline. I think that hamstring injury accelerated a decline that was already in motion. I hate to say it, but I think Paul's days of being an impact player (on a championship level) are gone. I was impressed with Gordon's play in the postseason. Sometimes he couldn't throw it in the ocean, but he always stayed aggressive. I think part of his struggles are due to the fact that MDA has him shooting from so far away. Those shots are of high variance. Yes, he can make them at a higher clip than most but moving a bit closer would increase is the percentage. It would be nice to see MDA run a play for him every once in a while.
I can't believe the amount of respect I've gained for Austin Rivers in just a short amount of time. He would have probably been on my list for most hated players in the league before this season, but now honestly, he might be among my favorites. Every championship team has guys like him and Tucker.....those are guys you want to go to battle with, and know they will leave everything they have on the floor. No matter what goes on this off-season, I pray that we keep both Austin and PJ on this roster.
It's ironic that you used a Bruce Lee quote about missing the bigger picture when that's exactly what you're doing. Running things exclusively through Harden isn't conducive to long term success but let's not act like James has a gun to the Rockets head and demanded this. Morey and Co. handed the keys to James and said we need to you to be elite every night....and more the most part he has. If anybody is to blame for this it's the coaching staff and the front office. Don't concentrate on the finger (Harden) and look at the big picture (the Rockets organization).
Yes, they were very elucidating and troubling. I can see Rivers wants to stay in Houston and have a bigger role. MDA is unfortunately no Popovich or even Carlisle. Rivers will not re-sign with us in my opinion.
