I'm all for him playing 15-20 mins. Keeping expectations in check. If he' still hampered id pull him cause they ARE gonna go at him so defense has got to help and be alert. Anywho we won with a hampered Paul 1st game of the season Right? Go ROCKETS!
doesnt matter if its one game. at this point of the series and playing for whats at stake. this team without cp3 cannot beat gs. the ceiling just isnt high enough. hes the difference
no they dont. cp3 is an elite difference maker. you dont just replace that. not at this point and when your playing a historic team like GS. they could probably get away with it for a game against any other team but not this one imo his absence also puts guys in roles bigger than what they normally are capable of. people should realize by now harden plus role players have a limited ceiling. thats exactly what this is without cp3
This. "Just play him 8-10 or 10-15 minutes. Just to give Harden a break." Easy to say "Yeah, just go out there, dribble, pass, shoot threes, keep it simple." And defensively?You don't think they're gonna go after him? A guy on one leg, hobbled, can hardly move? All the switching the Rockets do. Can he close out, get to his spots? That's like putting Joe Johnson or Ryan Anderson out there. It's terrible & unfortunate timing and he may try and go but...
Coming back in just 4 days after what looked to be a pretty severe hamstring strain? Aggressive. Even if it’s not as bad as it looked and it was a minor strain I think he’s gonna be frustrated cause he’ll have no burst/explosion and it’s gonna be difficult to run even at half speed. There’s a good chance he does more harm than good for us if he’s hobbling around even slightly especially defensively. I hope I’m wrong. Dead wrong.
He already had extremely limited burst/explosion due to his foot/Achilles issue in the same leg. The plays he made were generally based on his shooting technique, intelligence, and court savvy. Moreover, in terms of "more harm than good", Gerald Green and Luc Mbah a Moute played a combined 41 minutes last night. This is not an extremely high bar we're talking about.
It's been the 3rd quarter that has been the bane of this team. Get past the 3rd quarter with a big lead, I would like their chances to win!
If guys could get by on just shooting technique, intelligence and court savvy... Steve Nash, Jason Kidd and John Stockton would all still be in the league today. Those guys lasted much longer than the average cause of the things you mentioned but at the end of the day you still need to be able to move and move quickly in the NBA. Moving quickly is not something I can imagine CP3 being able to do tomorrow.
This might be a case of don't rule him out so the Warriors have to prepare for CP3 in case he plays tomorrow.
