Can we start giving Harden props for his good defense lately?

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying. Do you think you could clear it up? I see defence as an incredibly high-effort task.

 

Harden has performed quite well all things considered, however, I feel he is still prone to hang onto the ball until shot clock is about to expire and pass it to teammate resulting in low % shots by the teammates. Of course, this is said with a max contract expectation.

 

Never gets a hand up while defending, its gotten to the point where it is embarrassing . I can almost predict to a certainty whether a player will score when Harden switches on defense.

 

This Pelicans game pretty much proves Sampson's point about Harden's defence. He's a 4th quarter defender. In the first three quarters, he basically gave up when his man got past him, and bit on so many damn fakes. But in the last 3 minutes, he finally got his act together and actually played some god damn D.

 

Tonight was LOL-worthy defense by Harden. The homer in me has to believe he'll step it up when the playoffs start, right? RIGHT??? Let's hope...

At least he was huge again offensively, per usual.

 

He is so good offensively.

People don't realize that he has been lefty Lebron since the start of 2014.

 

Harden played 46 minutes last night and 43 minutes tonight. Hard to play on both ends of the floor when your coach doesn't give you rest

 

This is why Harden isn't a superstar. Guys like Durant might not play great defense all the time but at the very least he is not a defensive liability like Harden. There is no way the Rockets are going anywhere if 3 out of 5 starters don't play a lick of defense. Yes I am talking about Parsons too.

 

Get played 46 and 43 minutes you get a partial pass, but not raising your hand to contest? Or at least making a token foot shuffle?

Yah, that's asking a bit much...

 

I agree on this point. He makes zero effort to contest . You can't just do it in the 4thQ, not everybody is as bad as N.O.

 

The thing about James that bothers me is that he takes himself out of the play when he gets beat.

It's okay to get beat off the dribble, it happens to everyone; even to the best defenders. But to get beat then take yourself out of the play by not hustling back is unacceptable. And most times it's because he doesn't box out that we give up those offensive rebounds and open shots off drives because it's usually Asik or Howard picking up James' man and Howard or Asik's man gets a free lane to the basket. James isn't the only one who does it but he does it almost every time he gets beat. Please just hustle back and rotate, James!

And I don't like that James switches off his man and usually lets our big pick up his man on the perimeter. Howard and Asik are elite defenders and Jones is athletic enough to keep up with most people but that's so lazy to always switch and it usually leads to mismatches and offensive rebounds because the out big are taken out of the play guarding the perimeter.

 

Kevin martin got su much flack for his defense, and i never really understood why. They made it sound like he was as bad as harden.


Harden on the other hand will never be a true all star if this is the defense we can expect from him. I think the league has figured out he only uses energy on one side of the court.

 

He may me out of it on D a lot but without Harden we have no team.

 

Man game announcers were down down on Harden on both ends. The contempt was as amusing as annoying.

 

He needs to get in tremendous shape in order to have the stamina to play good D with amazing offence. Hopefully, he's able to do that in the offseason leading up to next year. But short term, he needs to jedi mind trick himself to go all out during the playoffs this year. Lez go Harden!

 

Conversely, if he played a little defense, maybe the team wouldn't find itself in a situation where he has to play so many minutes.

 

This is why McHale put him at the 4 last year vs OKC, because he can put forth full effort in the post, but chasing 2's and 3's is something he won't waste effort for, because he carries the team on O. It won't work against the Spurs, Portland or Memphis, but I bet against all the other teams, he will play there.

 

This is an excellent post, I should add that I don't think he is being lazy...it looks like he is sacrificing a lot of energy on D for O..which isn't always the right choice.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled on something I remember standing out on draft day 2009. The dude has battled asthma for his entire life. I don't know how severe it is, but playing 40+ minutes 2 nights in a row has to take a toll.

Its at 0:50
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/fPRaQnmDQxI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Les should make a deal with Harden; for every game he plays good D in the playoffs he gets $100 to spend on strippers. For every bad game, he is forbidden a week from going to a strip bar.

 

LOL that frame though!

3. Jordan Hill
4. Steph Curry

Thanks, Jay Bilas!!!