[ESPN/ Russillo] "I can't stand the Rockets", "I will root against them"

It's basically an ice-cold take. Or even a non-take.

"Hey, I'm probably alone in thinking this way, and I'm sure people are going to crucify me for saying it, but that Freddie Mercury was a pretty good singer."

 

The intense hate that these people harbor is really telling. And scary. The whole lot of them. It's really coming out now. Like, for every one of them that just says something snide, we're starting to see what they'd all really say unfiltered, because some of them are starting to slip. It's disturbing.

 

He also said recently that he thinks Harden is the MVP over Giannis

 

The ISO ball is the best way to beat a team like the Worriers who had 6 all stars, which is beyond ridiculous for any team in the past. They also can switch everything so motion offense isn’t going to work that well. People should be hating GSW for having a stacked team that always winning with luck and nba bias and recruiting Durant was the nail in the coffin.

 

I really don’t think most of these people actually watch the Rockets play. There are a lot of parrots.

 

Yeah, illegal screens, undercutting jump shooters and ironically complaining to refs for EVERYTHING (and mouth guards dangling) is such a beautiful brand of basketball

 

The whole damn league is soft as hell. And the Rockets are one of the teams that have embraced these soft ass rules and tried to maximize their potential. But hey if you're claiming to be " old school" then let's bring hand checking back and let's get down to defense. Let's scrap this whole "freedom of movement "crap and let's get back to defense. Otherwise these loud mouth hypocrites need to shut the hell up.

 

But this is why Harden doesn't have 2 MVPs right now today and should be going for his 3rd...

It's because of the hate that people have for this team and him. The narrative is that he's cheating the game somehow and exploiting it and that his numbers would be lower if it weren't for him exploiting.

Harden's legacy with 2-3 MVPs would have been as one of the greatest players to ever play no matter the era and they and their biases took that away from him.

 

I would say most "old school" advocates would agree with your sentiment about returning to the hand checking era.

 

People's hate for Harden and his foul baiting would be far more tamed if he delivered in the playoffs. The fact that he doesn't confirms their notion that he's overly reliant on whistles to be effective at winning.

 

Another bookmark for whenever a media member scoffs at the idea of bias against the Rockets.

 

Is the bias stemming from play on the court or three city of Houston because they don't like Houston?

 

Here's the thing...Harden gets eliminated every year by a team stacked with 4-5 all-stars.

It's not like he's going out early or going down in matches where his team is not favored.

That's only happened once, the series against the Blazers the Rockets were favored. That's the only time Harden lost a series in which his team was favored on the Rockets...he's had plenty of playoff success.

 

His drop in scoring efficiency is drastic.

He lost to the Spurs without Kawhi. He lost in the first round against a Curryless Warriors. He lost against the Blazers.

Last year's playoffs, the Rockets defense took them to 7 games, not Harden's scoring. He was horribly inefficient. But those were defensive slug fest games where many games neither team scored above 100.

He doesn't show up in the playoffs like he does in the regular season.

 

"Makes you want to punch him in the face."
"They represent everything wrong with society."
"I hope they get swept."
"Can't stand them. I will root against them."

Media would make you think the Rockets went to a foreign country and brought back a caravan of ISIS terrorists and put together a basketball team.

OFF WITH THOSE TERRORISTS HEADS! THEY MUST BE DEFEATED!

 

That’s a good point. Our 3 point heavy, foul hunting offense was born from trying to gain an advantage against a stacked team. Nobody could just out talent GS. Morey went to the drawing board and this is what he came up with.

I’m on record as saying I like the wins we get but I don’t really like our offense. Hardens hero ball is incredible when it’s working. The problem is that it gets shut down to just really good in the playoffs and the game gets ugly.

 

Everyone outside of Kawhi takes a drop in efficiency...it's the playoffs, you don't get to have 60 point nights against the suns or knicks. Kawhi's goes up because the guy doesn't look for his shot as much in the regular season. The last time your brought up his efficiency you said that Dame was better and I showed you statistically that just wasn't the case. Harden's playoff stats were better than the guy you said was a playoff performer. You have some odd bias against him.

Curryless Warriors? You really are talking about a season that was completely dysfunctional and featured Dwight Howard being Dwight Howard, a coaching change, and the Rockets as an 8th seed? How are we holding this against Harden?

The Spurs were the higher seed and didn't have Kawhi for one game. Let's not act like he missed the whole series or even a majority of the series.

 

Yes, the game that Kawhi missed was an elimination game where Harden put up one of the worst single game performances for a superstar level player in the playoffs. It was his moment to take advantage of a team missing their best player and he put Inca complete dud. How can you not fault him for that?

His scoring efficiency drops drastically. He shot 30% from three in the playoffs last season. That's horrible for a guy who relies heavily on the 3 pt shot for his efficiency.

 

Its weird to have so many sports personalities rooting for Goliath. I guess the narrative of dynasty is more compelling than real competition. They're pretty much conceding how only one team has a chance to win everything.

Mindlessly Boring.

 

Nah... The media was rooting for the Clippers. The media roots for the opponent of the Warriors in the playoffs all the time except when it's the Rockets.

It's the play style dude.