That Spurs game is still a mystery. We many never know what happened if Harden doesn't talk about it. Only he knows. Even Pop and Morey were dumbfounded.
Yeah, the way they are defending Harden, we didn’t need to pull Clint to set picks to free Harden to the paint. Their best bet is double team earlier and have Harden give up the ball. But the problem with that, we have another HOF guard in CP3. If they start doing that, CP will handle the ball more and Harden will finish. There is just no good way for them to solve this especially they have to figure this out on the fly in the middle of series. At this point, Harden is probably so comfortable with whoever is going to guard him. There is no one on that team that can even bother him one on one. So it’s a tall order for them.
Yeah, it’s on youtube. The host was yapping about sending double team to Harden and have him get rid of the ball. Knight and Carter were tellling him politely that wouldn’t work well either.
Zach Lowe does his homework regardless. I hate this opinion hes latching onto about "attacking Harden because hes still a bad individual defender and the defense is catered to him" but he absolutely is one of the better analysts. He just seems to over fantasize defense. That's why he went Kawhi the Westbrook vs Harden year and why he went Giannis this year. But homework he does.
The mistake teams make is not letting Harden go left, its letting him touch the ball in the first place. Harden is the best I have ever seen. I know about the Jordan rules and I know this article and Lowe in general respects Harden. However, I have never seen more effort and derision in all of the articles and commentary about how to stop Harden. Nothing proHarden or Rockets really just this focus. Ric Bucher of all people gave it away. Players respect Giannis, THEY FEAR THE BEARD. The more teams deploy this and other gimmick defenses the more destructive he will be because they are so predictable. We already know what Harden will work on this offseason. Hakeem and Jordan were the players that I always loved that went into the lab but no one has approached Harden.
Funny I think you have a point here. If Hardens goes left, he will look to score more and with Gobert hanging around rim, that’s not easy. If we overload Clint on the strong side, it kinda clogs the driving lane and passing lane to the corner. If Clint is the on weak side, the lob to him is a hard pass to make for Harden. But then he will start jacking up step-backs , and maybe that’s the best prayer Utah can have.
Yeah, that was kinda dumb. But I will say this, the games we lost is 1) we felt scoring pressure; or 2) we played too loose with a lead. When we have a lead and also try to take care of business, the other team is just at our mercy no matter what they do.
Incredible read. I will pay more attention when watching the game. Tbh, I don't really understand all these intricacy, and hopefully I can get more joy by learning a bit more about the game.
I stopped thinking about game 6 so long ago...such a distant memory Harden was amazing, but that version of Harden doesn’t even come close to the Harden we have right now which is just insane to think about I watch Harden clips from back then, and it’s like he’s not even the same dude anymore...his isolation moves are way more deadly now, and the stepback three is unstoppable
I think harden has some physicality he hasn't unleashed yet too . This has been his best year for poster dunks. When he pulls out that extra gear he is explosive
Harden had the repuation of choking in playoffs, and that's not totally unfair. He did have some really bad performances. And he had a tendency of overdribbling and passing it off at the end of the shot clock. That used to drive me crazy. We don't see that anymore.
We need more substantial content on NBA articles like this one. Detailed yet understandable. What they said about Capela's positioning was something I hadn't noticed ... shifting him to the right side so that harden can pass with his left to the shooters who are being left open because of the threat of the lob. Pretty interesting. Lol, Harden has apparently covered every single weakness in his game, except hook passes with his right hand. Pretty crazy. I doubt that'll be that hard for him to figure out too. The only thing that the article shows that the jazz can do is take the primary defender trailing harden and have him "give up" on the trail and take the open shooter that the defender holding clint just left open. But hopefully that shooter is also moving just a few more feet farther (to the corner) to ensure an open 3. Ingles shouldn't be able to get to him by then.
He still didn’t vote for Harden and he made excuses for it. He voted for Giannis this season. He doesn’t like Harden and never really has.
