Both blowouts tonight Harden plays 31 minutes and has 60 and 8 Giannis plays 20 minutes and drops 26-9. Giannis could have tried for a 40-20 game in 31 minutes based on his trend, yet he didn't. Harden could have sat with 40 points, but stayed in the game taking every shot. I'd rather have the bench crew playing as much as they can. You already know what you are going to get with Harden, but it's important for the entire bench to get reps in game action. You never know when a bench player will be important for you in the Playoffs. You need to give them the most opportunities to develop and improve. In reality I'm pretty sure tonight's game HURTS Harden's chances at MVP. Voters will see that Harden's stats are devalued because they came from statpadding. Meanwhile they can accept Giannis or LeBron's lower stats cause they believe that they didn't statpad.
Anything could happen in an NBA game. We were up by 50 points in mid third. That was the point you would say ok, pull him. Instead, he played 6 more minutes. Not a huge deal as put it to be.
Giannis doesn’t play more because he can’t play more. He didn’t even play big minutes in the playoffs....
Giannas could go 40/20 is just false. That's not like impossible. Harden could go for the impossible today and MDA stopped that. People just find ways to be unhappy.
Doesn't matter. They'll come up with every reason to hurt Harden's MVP case. He's a hooper, he wants to play ball. He didn't do anything wrong.
He didn’t play the ENTIRE 4th quarter! Jesus. Some dumbasses just find ways to complain. If they are not gonna vote for him after TONIGHT, they are probably not gonna vote for him regardless no matter what. So who freaking cares. They can all go to hell.
What just happened!? where am I? Harden should have played 40 minutes and scored 100 pts then looked in the camera and said f-ck you to everyone that would have hated him for it. Rockets don't play until Tuesday.
What is this **** post? He dropped 60 points in 30 minutes. He didn’t play 45 minutes.... 30 minutes is completely acceptable. I can tell you this, most players with 60 points after three quarters are playing for 75-80 points even if it takes 40+ minutes.
Harden wasn't alone in an empty gym chucking up shots. Hawks players were actively trying to prevent him from scoring points. Your assumption of "statpadding" is incorrect when the other team clearly defended him (just not well). What Trae Young did tonight...THAT was statpadding.
But with the gimmick double team the Hawks had, it was just a tad bit more intense than the shoot around.
Yeah man it’s really important for our bench to...learn how to play without Russ or James on the court? Solid analysis dude. Keep up the great posting.
Do people just sit there and try there best to just come up with possible ways to criticize the game? Harden is never winning the mvp again anyway.