The Delusion of some people amaze me...absolutely leaves me speechless. I mean...it's like saying Jessica Tata is a great day care worker, she just had a bad day at work. But she's still a great day care worker. For those who might remember in the news, Jessica Tata is the stupid hoe from Houston who left a bunch of toddlers alone while the kitchen stove was on while she went shopping at Target. Then came back to a burning day care and four kids died.
I would chalk it up to Harden having a bad game if he was driving in and not getting calls on shots, or just missing three point shots. That wasn't the case, he played extremely passive in a playoff elimination game. He wasn't focused, the turnovers and excessive (bad) passing are not encouraging. If he was driving in and got the ball stripped on good defensive plays I would give him a pass, but he was throwing the ball to the corner with no one there - there were several Shaqtin type moments. When your team gets off to a bad start, it should be the job of your star player to set the tone and get things going.
I mean, I don't know how to respond to this. Yes i did say that first thing, but if you read it slowly hopefully you can see I am not saying Nene>kawhi, tony parker. Two different thoughts. They were missing players but are very well coached. We were missing Nene, it messed with us. Spurs are better than us so even if their injuries are bigger, with Pop they are still able to win some games. But I mean if it helps to twist my words go for it. Wasn't even the point in my post. I get it. I am very disappointed in how they lost too. I don't want my team getting blown out at home in an elimination game when the opponent is down key players. It sucks. And we looked horrible. Just saying in the end we lost to a team we were expected to lose to before the playoffs started and maybe if we just accept that some of these ridiculous posters can stop acting like emotional kids Haha. Yeah I'm delusional. A basketball game not going a certain way is just like an incident were kids died. I mean....grow up. @Rocketeer4Life , this is what I mean.
So James blame his teammates for not making shots. John Wall said", I don't care if I got for 0 for 30. I'm the star and I'm going to carry the team or lose . But I ain't quitting on my home court"
Esp when you consider how it all started Most people b*tching about this ending . .. were b*tching about the DAntoni hire and letting Dwight Go Without replacing him with a nother NAME Rocket River
I think the regular season was better than expected but with the season taking its course, 2nd round is reasonable. The way the team gave up wasn't. We came back against the Clippers so years ago. So yup.
Ummmmm.... 2 fg attempts for the entire first half with zero rebounds... walking around disinterested... turning the ball over carelessly... idk bro, it sure looked like quittin... lol...
Is it lost on everyone? To use an insane scenario to illustrate just how insane the OP's original argument is? And I'm directly talking about the part when the OP said "Harden is still the man. He had a bad game, and we ended up losing the series to a better team." I mean that's just ludicrous.
Game 6 was a terrible performance under the spotlight, but from my seat, the team looked like it was battling more than simple fatigue. [On the Spurs roster vs. the Rockets roster] There's little doubt in my mind that the Spurs have a more balanced, veteran lineup, and their younger players--Murray and Simmons--thrived under pressure. . . Aldridge really found his game that's been missing since he put on a Spurs jersey. . . And we can all keep underestimating Ginobil if we want to, but he's one of those players that you want on your team and hate to coach against. While EG is a solid player, Ginobili is a world champion and Olympic champion. The Spurs overall roster is deceptively good. I'm really interested to see how the Spurs will match up with Golden State and whether Mills can lean on Curry like he did on Harden. If the Spurs can find a way to win an early game in that series and stretch things to 6 or 7, they just might topple GS by attrition. The Rockets grew by leaps and bounds in creating a winning culture last offseason with key additions and subtractions, but Harden and the team need to take a hard look in the mirror about what it will take to keep maturing. What will Morey will do with this roster? Some of our players have reached their highest point as assets. I wouldn't try to stand pat and simply add one more piece, as I think it will be difficult to recapture what we accomplished this season. Can we stomach a painful 3-player for another star type trade? That kind of thing works in a trade machine, but drastic changes like that, along with an extended free agency dance, play havoc with team chemistry. We'll see . . .
dude, there is no one else that harden can guard! he can only box out and hope the big man has an off night, like in game 5. but the problem with that is that its going to effect the rest of his game, having to actually play defense....he's not athletic enough to play both ends of the floor PERIOD. he can't guard any of the perimeters players. if you go back to game 2, you can see that popovich kept moving the ball around, isolating harden. they were going to make him play defense because they know its going to wear him down. this is why this dude is fools gold. he looks good in the regular season when no one is really playing defense, putting up stats. But in a real game he sucks.
I mean, you said it yourself...you used an insane scenario...INSANE being the key word. I said Harden is still the man...yeah he had a ridiculous season and we would be nowhere without him...he had a bad game but I'm not going to trash him for that considering what he did all year. "We ended up losing the series to a better team" I mean maybe you're just misinterpreting what I'm saying. San Antonio IS better than us. Obviously we are better than them if they don't have Kawhi, but that doesn't mean we won't lose a game we're suppose to win. I was just saying it's more likely going to happen when we are on our last legs (fatigued and shorter rotation without Nene) and when the opponent's coach is Popovich. Sheesh. What is it with you people? I mean I was pissed too but some of y'all are beyond fickle.
Clutchfans is you reading some emotional post from an angry kid, not seeing what he was claiming one wrote is completely false and you running away with it? Cool
How many times have we seen a team leave everything on the line during a playoff game only to come up short, and then have nothing left to give the following game. Much like when the Rockets came back from 20 in the 4th against the Clippers, and then blew the Clippers out in game 7, the Rockets just couldn't recover from the loss in game 5. This happens all the time, and while I was disappointed in the way the Rockets season ended, I certainly wasn't surprised.
It wasn't that Harden had a bad game. He wasn't just missing shots that he normally makes. He wasn't even taking those shots. He was wide open and passed up the shot to hit a covered teammate, or threw the ball out of bounds, or was all the way to the rim, and decided to dump it off to someone else who had they caught the ball would have had to make a much tougher shot. As a fan of this team, I don't know if I'll ever get image of Harden being wide open for an uncontested three and deciding to pass the ball to a less open teammate. But it was so unnatural of a thing to do that Harden threw the ball out of bounds and it was a turnover. It's possible that Harden went in with the game plan to get everyone else shots, and over thought it so much that he didn't take what the other team was giving him. It may have been that he had no confidence and knew that without confidence even if he shot he would miss. Either way those are huge mental breakdowns. For whatever reason when the team needed Harden the most he shrank away rather than grow to meet the challenge. We need to find out why and try and make sure it doesn't happen again. That being said, I'm not saying we should trade him, or that he doesn't have heart, or we can't win a championship with him as our star. I don't think any of those things, and I've seen too much from Harden to say those things for certain. I understand why fans might feel those things, but it's better to be less emotional when making those kinds of decisions. I've said before and I still believe the Rockets are lucky to have James Harden. He took the team on his back for most of the playoffs and the regular season. He played with heart tons this season and in the playoffs. But he didn't in game 6. Harden's bad game and moments don't erase all of the good ones. His good moments also can't change his bad ones. None of us are in a place to be able to find out why it happened. Harden will have to do that on his own, with the help of coaches, or with a sports psychologist. Like I said in another thread. It would require watching the game with Harden play by play and asking what was happening in his mind during each of the plays he shrank away. Then asking him if he understood what would have been better of the team and with the system the Rockets are playing. We'd also have to hope that Harden could be honest with those asking the questions and with himself. That isn't going to happen with anyone on this board, and may not happen at all. So people speculating and being certain what the problem is or what the future holds is nothing more than speculation. It will just lead to misinformation, rumors, frustration and bitterness. It's far better to just hope that Harden works on whatever the problem is and doesn't let it sap him of his drive, motivation, and conversation. I get it. Everyone wants an explanation for something that seems inexplicable. There really is just no way to know. That isn't comfortable for folks they will make up or accept whatever theory they need for the event to make sense to them. It's like a primitive people looking for reasons why sometimes rain comes and saves their crop and sometimes drought causes their primitive civilization to starve. So they make up sun gods, or rain gods or whatever to give them reasoning for something that they can't know.
