Sever deficiencies...give me a break, you really dont understand just how much success either of these two have had in this league do you. No problem with criticism but SEVER DEFICIENCIES.....lol come on now
He isnt a good mid range shooter though.......oh ok let me rephrase, hes not an efficiency mid range shooter.
I don’t think so? https://stats.nba.com/teams/defense/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1 Jazz defensive rating #8 out of all playoff teams. Middle of the pack just like I said.
B + (I selected B obviously). Harden struggled offensively at times but he didn't let that affect his defensive effort!
Ummm. why are you using the playoff sample (5 games) to rate Jazz's defense. They are the 2nd best defense rated team this regular season, the only reason why "The Jazz defense was middle of the pack out of all the teams in the playoffs." is b/c of Harden and the Rockets offense, not cause their defense is actually average. I find it strange that you would use a small sample size to downplay Jazz's defense. Harden did great against 2nd best defense.
Bro....is this guy series. You realize playoffs are different right and that everyone is playing the same opponents over and over again. You realize they there defense got way WAY better after game 3 right? And we blew them out in games 1, 2 because they had not adjusted. Context bro context...this stat is useless being used like this.
well 5 games playing a Houston team does that to you when playing an elite team. that in no way defines how good they are defensively
And hes still top 20 in impact ever. according to some advanced metrics, he may have a drop of but its because he sets such a high standard in the regular season. Hes still an impactful player and last year he had the second best advanced metrics after Lebron.
Soooo they got way better so that means they went from bottom to middle of the pack. The stats and numbers don’t lie. How can you say the Jazz defense is so scary and top ranked and then when I show you with real numbers and facts that they’re actually not top ranked you wanna bring up things like context and it’s useless and can’t be used like this. Bro... are youuuu serious?
I feel like you guys are grading Harden on a different scale or different standard of his own. His stats plus the series result against 2nd Best Defensive team, should warrant at least a B/B-. Opposing team literally transformed their defense to specifically combat Harden. Hell Harden should get extra credit for never before seen defensive strat: humping a player from behind to deny step back 3s.
What? If GS played Utah for 82 games. The numbers would say that GS wouldn’t be the number 1 offense and Utah wouldn’t be the number 1 defense. That doesn’t mean that GS isn’t the best offense and that Utah isn’t the best defense.
Thats not how numbers work man, for one thing, we are great offensive team, we clobbered them in games 1 and 2 because they went with a new scheme, once they got used to it in games 3 4 and 4 you saw the result. CONTEXT. We are a great offensive team and blow outs in the playoffs happen thats why stats and the context the are used in are important.
I have the same take. Also, to beat the Warriors, Harden can't have any 0-15 or 1-11 halves shooting the ball. He corrected himself in both games, but he can't do that vs the Warriors because their offense will put the game out of reach (unlike Utah).
A+ For Clutch play. You can't denie it, he may have sucked all game and shot 0 for (insert some double digit number here) but in crunch time he nailed his shots and came up big on defense each game. He was the definition of the word Clutch this whole series. B for overall play considering the opposing teams defense was set on him. I'm also gaging this at an overall NBA level as if all players were created equally. C+ for James Harden play standards. Kudos for not giving up, but that defense rattled him. The defense really got to him and affected his shot. He allowed rent space in his head against Goberts floater defense. Personally, I would have liked for him to take a few top of the key right in front of the free throw line shots occasionally to have kept the defense honest. He was visibly rattled and rushed things, whether it be shots or passes. However, his passing while not good, was not awful. It was fair according to James Harden standards and so worth pursuing the same strategy.
Also, yea Ill give him a B as well. I dont know about Mid range, but if Harden can run to get the ball out of the 21 series, then he can run to get some open looks off a down screen or something haha. I believe in James Harden. ........but also would like some more off ball sets for him haha.
