Harden can't ball watch...

Harden has to play the best defense of his career for us to beat the Warriors.

Zach Lowe was on point about that. He needs to be better on defense than offense this series.

 

That's not his job. His job is to score 30+PPG while being decent on defense not being DPOY.

 

I think he played great defense in a couple of games against the Jazz (i think it was the main reason why our team defense was looking amazing), ok in one and bad/terrible when he was obviously ill or concussed. If he's ok i expect him to be good enough due to the importance of the game.

 

The whole, “He has to be better on defense than he is offensively this series” is one of the dumbest things I’ve heard. If that statement were true, and his defense -was- better than his offense, then we are getting swept.

His job is to use his energy on the offensive end, and to not be a complete liability on defense, which to me he’s done. Don’t mistake slow lateral movement for “Not trying.” Does he have some lapses? Sure. Is it constant like it use to be? Not even close.

 

We really need to get him in the post or something. It seemed like Ingles/Mitchell/whoever felt like it was going by him in the last series.

Luckily, Capela was there to swat everything.

 

We aren't going to beat the warriors by out scoring them. They have the three best shooters in the league.

 

The Warriors are going to hunt James down all series. They will punish him on picks and try to confuse him and make him the weak point of our defense.

It's the same thing we'll do to Curry but I guarantee you Curry isn't going to take possessions off on defense. Harden has to push himself harden than he's ever had to in his career.

 

This is a great invitation for vlaurelio.......

 

yeah, I agree

he needs to be absolutely dominant on offense and be good enough on defense...basically just follow the defensive game plan and give effort

if he’s better defensively than offensively in this series then we have no chance...Harden needs to play like how he did in games 1, 2, and 4 of the 2015 WCF

 

Haven't really seen him do much of this outside Game 2 vs. Utah. He's been pretty locked in defensively. In fact, when he was sick for Game 5 against Utah, I thought he was playing way harder on defense than offense.

Harden's issues on defense have always been about his focus. Physically he can keep up with a decent amount of wing players, but he leaves those backdoor cuts wide open often.

 

I was just coming to say this. He knows what people say about him. Even though our defense has improved people still point to him as a big missing link on the defensive side of the ball. He needs to show it on one of the biggest stages against arguably one of the greatest teams assembled for it to last.

He has been playing great in my opinion this year and even more so in the playoffs, he has a fire that seems to have been lit and I love it.

 

Everytime I see a Post start like this .. . . . . I start to read it But . . .. . . . .

Rocket River

 

you better get your excuses or apologies ready you are about to get torched

 

i trust his defense, if anything i am afraid of his turnovers streaks...

 

What a weird thread.

I’m the opposite on him.

His defense needs to be passable but he needs to play great on offense. I don’t think we can win the series without him playing like the mvp on offense

 

It's not weird. Harden has to play the best complete game of his life. F-ck this passable defense trash. We have seen Harden play very good team/post defense and good on the ball defense when he is dialed in. CP3 will be there if he gets tired.

Harden absolutely has to play defense AND offense to win. His time is now gawd damnit. Just freaking win! I'm giving him ZERO excuses.

 

DISAGREE. Game 3 against Utah. Harden's defense was better than his offense. Not because his offense was struggling, because his defense was great and his offense wasn't really needed.

The Rockets blew out the Jazz because of all the TO's Harden was creating. Rockets were up a billion without harden doing much on the offensive end. Harden tried to get his numbers in the 3rd and 4th when the game was over.

 

I agree Harden needs to play like the MVP he is on both offense and defense everygame from here on out

but I want to add for this playoffs, harden's defense as been almost as effective as cp3's. same defensive rating same dbpm

that's what happens when he does not have to do everything and be the main focus on offense since cp3 has arrived and the growth of capela as a true rim protector and addition of defensive specialists tukcer and lmm

https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2018.html

I'm more worried about Ariza, Ego, Green, and especially Ryno's defense.. they absolutely need to defend better than the past 2 series