Clutchfans Game Thread: Rockets @ Thunder 8/31/2020 (Playoffs Round 1, Game 6)

Math is hard

 

https://stats.nba.com/game/0041900176/advanced/?RangeType=2&StartRange=21600&EndRange=28800

In the 4th Quarter

Harden
Offensive Rating : 104.8
Defensive Rating : 90.5
Net Rating : + 14.3

Westbrook
Offensive Rating : 72.2
Defensive Rating : 120.0
Net Rating : - 47.8

Again. The disrespect Harden receives on this site is comical.

 

great album
by NRVN

 

Mathematicians do not win ships.

 

Yep.

 

****ing yikes.

 

In clutch moments stars like Kawahi or Butler makes mid range shots again and again. But James Harden just keeps bricking the damn long three! Why don't play a little smarter? Smh.

It's so frustrating to watch 50 year old Chris Paul beat Rockets with a bunch of scrub.

 

You think the Rockets are equivalent to OKC, and yet, you think they're good enough to beat the Lakers, Clippers, and then the Bucks? Okay...

 

These haters will sweep that under the rug and nitpick Harden.

 

Because I'm more interested in the series outcome

 

The thing is, even if Harden scores an efficient 50 points in game 7 and carries us to victory, the haters will be back in the series against the Lakers to spread their hate for Harden.

It's the same old story. People expect Harden to play well for the full 4 quarters..... which isn't possible, especially when he's doing the heavy lifting on the defense and offense. He's bound to be tired in the 4th. He's literally carried us this whole series. Why isn't anyone else stepping up?

You have players like Gordon who literally have offered us nothing on the offense this whole series. He has an easy job of just spotting up and hitting his shots.... he can't even do that at the moment. He's had one solid game all series. Jeff Green has gone off the boil in the last 3 games. You don't know what Covington you're going to get on the offense. Tucker just doesn't offer much on the offense besides the occasional corner 3pt shot. Westbrook hasn't been the same player since February. I know he's been injured, but he's literally offering us nothing on the offense considering the number of times he has the ball. He's had 28 shots and only scored 24 points.... and he's only had 10 assists. He's barely doing anything considering he's having a lot of the ball.

The only 2 players I can say has played well in the whole series is House and Harden. Stats will suggest this. But people want to nitpick Harden for 3 or 4 minutes of the game; they expect him to perform for the full 39 minutes or something. It's absolutely hilarious.

 

This game was never in our control, not once. I felt nervous the whole game, we got a few minutes every quarter where we generated good shots and overall very solid defense though lots of reaching again and some soft fouls called, but that's to be expected at this point. The problem is that we went away from what worked in Game 1 & 2, which is have Green bring the ball up, have a different look out there and get mainly House involved in some cuts. In general we are horrible at getting guys going, we were lucky Covington had his shot and took them in the rhythm of the offense, but when House had that 3 and hustle play on defense, I figured he'd get another shot at least. Did not take a shot for the rest of his time until he was benched.

I don't know what possesses Gordon to keep taking those early shot clock threes with no rebounding and a hand in his face. Sure he makes them when he's hot at times, but it's easily the worst shot to take. Gordon gets way too much leeway yet McLemore gets benched. Rivers same, the guy is not producing on either end either so why Ben gets the shaft? Green has ben off, but that is a direct result of not calling the same plays they did for games 1-4 without Westbrook and in particular games 1 & 2. In game 5 went into attack mode and allowed that to get our 3pt shot going. No we went back to forcing threes, though attacked a fair amount. Westbrook coming back has not worked out at all aside from nice fast break attacks. That shot with 40 seconds left, wtf was he thinking?!

The struggles we have boil down to a few things: lack of accountability, lack of leadership, lack of awareness and just not playing smart enough. We allowed OKC to dictate the pace and that's on Harden, Westbrook and MDA. If we lose Game 7, MDA has to be fired, he just has to and I won't shed a tear over it. This game would've been won with a coach who called some plays from the side for guys who were shooting a high percentage and or get one for your star player - Harden starting off the ball - or a leader like CP3 who takes over. This game is another example of why Harden is just not the alpha we need him to be. I rather have another closer like Murray at this point. This series would've been over.

To blame it all on Harden or Westbrook or even MDA is not right though. I mean, our great defender RoCo allowed CP3 to dance with him when everyone watching knew he was going for a three there. And once okay, but twice?! Just get up close on him, let him drive inside and get help defenders to pick him up. Don't know if this is partly strategy, but it looked like an individual mistake. So many individual mistakes, but this game was lost on offense. Defense was very solid throughout. We're just not having enough good shooters on the floor and that's on Morey and MDA. I rather ride with McLemore than Gordon or Rivers when they're not hitting their shots.

Game 7 could go either way, it's exciting yet terrifying. If we lose and MDA stays, then I'm done getting emotionally invested. And Harden needs to own up, at least go out balling like a boss and not shy away like he usually does.

 

Yeah really hard. Especially when you graduate as an IT engineer but that still probably isn't enough to understand that James is not a choker lol. If basketball was math we would be winning multiple championships by now

Let me show you how superstar(which y'all love to hate) closes out the game while loosing under 10 seconds to go. Did he need any timeout? Was he bullied or did he bully? Couldn't get the ball? Did he turnover the ball? Didn't get shot off? Blocked by washed Ginobli? Fished for foul? Passed up mid-shot to the teammate? Or did he just get the ****ing ball and did what he had to?


You can hate Tracy all you want but James doesn't have superstar ability to take over at will and shoot anytime on anybody. James plays chess and he needs things to go his way to succeed

 

if you ever played basketball you know how players feel about players that take all the no pressure shots&ballhog and when they can look bad and don't like in game situation pass up and force others to take shots while standing, not moving and not helping. Half healthy Westbrook shouldn't be getting the ball period, he had to take shots because Harden was passive. Then Russ takes responsibility, looks like **** and you come with stats that Harden looked better? James got to man up it's the last call for him, if he blows it this playoffs his choker legacy will be forever

 

He had it and he lost it. That fire... the **** happened?

 

Everyone calm down! We knew Disney was gonna take this to 7 games! How do you lose after blowing them out the game before? The league is not gonna let the rockets loose after spending so much assets/money getting these players. They just wanted 7 games.

 

If not for Harden, Russell wouldn't be here.

He is semi responsible for him.

I do not get why picking on WB is a way to elevate Harden though, they are brothers.

WB is coming back from an injury and from the Coronavirus so we can be merciful here.

The bigger culprits are Tilman and Morey.

 

man were the rockets trying to get a L... all those unforced turnovers? were they trying to win some money betting?

Also in 3rd quarter at a point when we had a great momentum russ had cp3 on him going fast to the rim in transition and he passed out of the sure layup or dunk for a 3 pt shot turning it over?!