We all know Harden will take the brunt of the end of game 5 and 6. But realistically how much of the blame goes to the rest of the team in game 6? We shot 28% as a team and were out hustled in every facet of the game. If you really want to be pissed, think about the fact we literally lost to LMA and the bench. I take that back, we got ran out of the gym by them.
Mike Antnis system. Maybe they upset they wanna play defense and shoot mid ranges but they stuck campin the 3 pt line
The only guy I would blame is Ryan Anderson. He's getting paid star money but playing like the 15th guy on the bench. If we replaced him with somebody who is actually worth 18M maybe Harden wouldn't have played like a dead fish. Also MDA deserves a lot of blame for that 7 samurai BS. Just dumb coaching and strategies all around Rockets deserved to lose. Actually if Westbrick wasn't such a net negative with the way Rox have been playong they wouldn't even have reached 2nd round.
only 3 guys to blame. harden, ryan and mda. before this game ryan got paid 20m per to avg 13/5 in the po's. i dont give a **** if he avg 1rpg in the po's, he should be a near 20ppg guy. the way he was defended these po's he should be geting 4-5 threes a game. i keep thearing how he has a quick trigger and shoots deep threes, giving harden extra space? those extra skills were completely useless. he's just another good shooter. mda too paranoid to use the bench more. just 2-5 min thats it, nothing else. okc in their heyday had hasheem thabust play center for a few min a game in the po's. that was hiis only flaw in these po's, or the one i care about. maybe morey for signing ryan to so much. eg's a risk im willing to take. ryan for htat much dough, hell no. 15m per is overpaying him. 20m per is suicide. marvin williams was had for 40m deal. we coulda gave him 10 more and have a better starting stretch 4. better way sto spend that 20m per than 13/5 in the po's. everyone else w/e. bev's shouldnt even be playing. ariza is a role player playign superstar minutes idc how many shots he bricks im amazed he didnt die yet. lou had his best po's by a million miles. eg stepped up big. capela grew in front of our eyes and held his own vs the spurs towers. they did thei rpart mostly. the other 3, or 4, did not.
Gordon lived up to his contract. Not superstar but a great bench player. Nene was godmode in Thunder series. Capela was sloppy at times but he seemed to have hustle. BEV didn't show up but his gramps died and I think that restricted his minutes. Ryno, Harden, MDA, and to a lesser extent Lou. Ariza isn't the greatest but at least he tries.
Zero blame. Their success is predicated on what they CAN do around an average James Harden within a MDA system. This was on Harden and MDA. It was poor rotation choices by MDA and just an old fashioned choke job by Harden. The rest of the guys are terrible defenders and we knew that. And they are offensively limited by how much attention the system or the franchise player gets them. They did what they could.
Ryan Anderson was expected to go 0-6? Are you saying he did what he could? Dude has been massive flop since round 1.
The only one who played like an NBA starter on a team fighting for their lives in a do or die game is Ariza. Other than Clint, our team's rebounding was horrific. That in itself showed who wanted it more. Their defense shut us down, period. They completely took away our 3 pt game, and shut us down at the rim. Even though Capela scored a double double, he just gets shoved around too easily, and isn't big or tall enough to be the starting center, and defensive threat many teams have at the rim. I never expect much from Beverley on offense, but he didn't do much on the defensive end either. Gordon and Anderson were terrible. Gordon's 1 rebound and 6 points and Anderson's 5 rebounds and 0 points just about says it all. They were shut down As for Harden, he will always have his fans who think he is great, and love the beard. I don't hate on our players, but have never been a Harden lover. I've never liked the foul drawing type play, and he relies on it too much. It just seems like he always chokes at some point in our playoffs, and I didn't think this year would be different. Our other guys have been off and on all year long, so that didn't surprise me either. But, for so many to be off the whole game just says it all. We need some guys who can consistently get to that rim or make some step back jumpers and not depend on the luck of the Irish when taking a 3 pt. shot. I'm not a fan of this small ball game, and when the guys aren't hitting, it just doesn't get much uglier. That was the most crushing defeat we had all year, and one of the worst I can remember ever having to suffer through, when I actually thought we might have a chance before the game.
You can't be the "man" and score only 10pts in a must win game. So 50% is on Harden. 40% goes to MDA for not trusting his bench. 10% to the team , mostly ryno. Hardens #'s were amazing this regular season but I think the MDA PG expirement is over. We just ran to slow. I remember mda suns playing and all you would hear was " wow they only used 6sec of the shot clock" on most of their positions. Here we are in the postseason using the entire shot clock. Back to the drawing board I guess...
forgot tos ay i dunno what his po's numbers are after this game, i'd rather not now for awhile. for health reasons cant blame the role players, they ddi their job except this fkn guy. some even stepped the **** up! your 20m per guy cant be avg 13/5 in the fkn playoffs for ****s sake! not if it doesnt come with a bunch of assists and defense like draymond. i was surprised how hard he tried to get rebounds though. he did what he could in rebounding and defense. offensively..wow. what a sht show. eats sht for breakfast i bet, then throws it all up on the court fo rthe world to see how much he loves sht
Ryan Anderson can do 3 things, and both we and the organization knew it before signing him to his contract. 1) Hit wide open 3's at average consistency at around 50%. TAKE NOTE, he will still miss 50% of wide open 3's. He cannot hit contested 3's. 2) Draw his defender out for James Harden to score more than he would normally score. 3) Decent offensive rebounder. If Ryan's defender is sticking to him, he cannot score. We knew that, we always knew that, New Orleans knew that, Orlando knew that, MDA knows that. That's not on him. He signed on to do what he has done for 10 years at the highest price the market/Rockets deemed fair. The fact that Ryan Anderson can't hit contested 3pters against the #1 defense in the NBA is not Ryan Anderson's fault. That includes 0 for 6 nights when most of those shots are contested. He hasn't flopped. He is a 3pt shooter whose game is predicated on being wide open. He performed slightly below what I expected. I would've expected him to make 1 more shot than he made. Big whoop. If James Harden can't make the defense collapse, the only other way for the coverage-dependent role players to succeed is ball movement. So in my eyes, the last 6 quarters of basketball are 99% on Harden and MDA. EDIT: and I should add, people fail and make mistakes and very commonly don't put together the perfect game to beat a better team. I don't think it means MDA or Harden can't ever do it, I just think they failed this time and that's ok if we learn from it. Harden especially is at the crossroads where he has to transfer his leadership qualities to be functional in BAD times or he disproportionately spreads the blame on the team.
nay nay's groin is also to blame. we would have gone to 7 games at the very least with his grit and leadership.
No blame on the rest. NONE. Maybe Rhyno for his pussyfication by Toyota Center but the rest tried This entire system is based on getting the ball in Harden's hands and letting him create offense. The rest are no better than 24 hr fitness pick up game ball handlers. My appreciation to Bev, Capela, Ariza, Nene, who gave it their all the whole season. Bev, Nene and Ariza are the real leaders of this team
You're being really easy on Anderson, the guy got a ton of open looks, especially vs OKC and just bricked them the whole time or pussied out of taking the shot. Saying it's on Harden and that Ryno didn't get quality looks isn't what actually happened.
The blame goes 100% to Harden. You can not have a game like he had last night and be considered our leader and best player. It was a huge embarrassment.
The blame should fall on the whole organization: From Les (who made the decision to hire MDA), to Morey (who got a bunch of one-dimensional players) to MDA (who could not (or would not) adjust to Pop's defensive strategies) to the other Rockets (Anderson, Williams, Beverley, Gordon) who could not step up their defensive effort when it counted (because that's not part of D'Antoni's system) and who could not break out of their 3 pt shot programming and go after the midrange 2 pt shots when that was the proper response to the defensive strategy employed by SA. Harden should be blamed for his total lack of desire last night. If you want to be the face of a franchise (as he does) then you'd better be ready to bring it every night and step it up when it counts - especially during the playoffs where there will be games where nothing goes right for you and your team and it's up to you to elevate your level of play to secure a victory. On that note, Harden failed miserably last night and deserves all of criticism he's getting from the Houston fans.
