James Harden leads the playoffs in Deflections, 3rd in Lose Ball Recovered

Too bad he's fat and lazy.

That's minus two draft picks that would've been on the table.

 

Shameless self promo.

 

MVP

 

MVP and DPOY!

 

Any objectively speaking Person can see harden has been much improved on defense

 

James Harden's defense made Durant looking silly last night.

 

His defense has definitely improved. The bar was pretty low yes, but it was better in the regular season and a notch higher than that lately. Good to see.

 

I noticed this too.

Harden while mechanically is not a seasoned defender, his focus and effort were there. I was impressed.

 

I'm re-watching Game 4. During the 12-0 run by GSW to start the game, Harden was pretty good defensively. He got lost on a switch that got Curry a 3, but that was pretty much it. I was distracted by how passive he was on offense to start the game, I didn't notice he was focused on defense from the start. Harden had a few slip ups (losing Klay twice for 5 points the most egregious), but was solid defensively for pretty much the whole game.

Furthermore, GG was really good on defense too. His box of +14 in only 12 minutes was not a fluke. His bad shots were distracting me from how dialed in he was on defense.

If Harden can remain this dialed in on defense AND score 30, Rockets can do this..

 

Too bad the media wont address this feat dont they?
Media conspiracy

 

Heresy !! Poster sh be baned from the board. Harden is lazy on defense and if he just tried harder he would be just as quick as Curry. No need to mention that Curry can't guard Harden, but that is ok since he is would if he was just bigger and stronger.

 

Breaking News: Christopher Paul has taught Jim Harden how to have heart

Amirite?

 

@vlaurelio was right man

 

For Harden, all I care about is him staying in front of his man on the perimeter, which is what he did in Game 4.

 

He definitely puts in a ton more effort these days.

Its still a bit perplexing how he can be so bad laterally on defense. Don't get me wrong, Steph can get by most people if he's hot from 3.

But for such a smart, savvy high IQ offensive player, I would have thought James would have recognized his lateral weakness by now and figured out "tactics" on how to limit his weakness.

Neither here nor there at this point, though. He's definitely trying harder. And frankly, even if efficient in plays, the more GSW purposefully try to play ISO ball and target someone, the better.

 

But he got burnt just as much as usual because his lateral foot speed just isn’t quick enough. The only difference was he was Much much better at getting right up in the players space and cramping the ballhandler.

On switches and rotations, he was playing with “force” and being physical. He was absolutely cramping players space.

 

Whatever it takes to keep his man in front is fine with me.

 

They still attack him more than any other player. If Trevor Ariza was getting iso'd on D most of the time, he'd arguably have more strips and deflections .

I love Harden, but he's our weak link, and that's fine because we have very strong links elsewhere. He just needs to perform more like game 4 defensively than game 1. There was a major difference, one that I'd argue is greater than the offensive efficiency differential he had in those games.

 

They shot 60% against him in Game 3
44% against him in Game 4