Ummmm. Think about it for a min, before the Jazz went into playoffs, what ranked were they defensively out of all the teams? Next how did they went from second best in the NBA regular season -> middle of the pack after 5 games? Who did they play and what dropped them to middle? Realize that Jazz defensive rating didn't go from 2nd best (regular season) -> bottom ( start of playoffs) -> middle of the pack (after playing 5 games with Houston) that's batsht stupid. How can a team with the 2nd best defensive rating in regular season dropped to bottom before the five games even happened? You are right stats and number don't lie, but how about u use the regular season stats which has a bigger sample size that gauges a team's ability to defend. https://stats.nba.com/teams/defense/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular Season
Lol how are you going to say the media bias got to us as FANS? Russell Westbrook plays his a** off as well.. doesn’t mean he has an A performance. Just because a player loses doesn’t mean he didn’t ball... well the same goes for guys winning. You all want non rockets fans to put their bias aside but we can’t do it ourselves. Anyways C+ if I could. But I think he’ll play much better in the next series when he’s played straight up. PJ was my favorite player this series. Phenomenal on the defensive end
Are you serious? Do you really think this is an accurate way to rank defenses in the playoffs? Do you know what defensive rating is? This has to be a troll, right?
He gets at least a B because we won in 5 and that doesn’t happen without him. Utah defense bothered him enough to shoot poorly but not enough to keep him from posting numbers that 99% of players would kill to have. He’s not going to put up 36ppg a series. That’s not realistic. But he will shoot better going forward.
I don't really think there is an accurate stat/method to rank defenses specifically in the playoffs. You'd have to look at a lot of stats, consider context, watch the games, make your own judgements. Defensive rating is literally how many points your opponent scores against you. You could take the best defense in the league and make them play the Warriors in a series and their defensive rating would look bad. The reason defensive rating is a good stat for the regular season is because every team plays every other team a bunch of times. So it is a good comparison tool to see how many points each team gives up, on average, when they have played every other team in the league. Looking at playoffs only, it's not super helpful. It's basically saying "The Jazz let the rockets score better than the 6ers let the nets score." That's really not very helpful information, and it's not comparable.
Yeah, I rounded up to an A b/c one of the best defensive teams in the league made it all about him, the refs largely swallowed their whistles, and he still found decent scoring and kept his teammates involved with great passing. Turnovers could have been much, much higher in this case.
If they're playing behind him, harden should go forward towards rim and pull up for midrange jumper or go to rim and do a side step pull up midrange jumper which draw fouls against player pursuing him from behind
He has to better or this team has no chance. I’ll just chalk it up to Utah’s scheme and hope he’s better next round.
Clutch Fans are insatiable or perhaps, the majority in this forum are actually non Rockets fans. Tell me any player in the league right now or in the past - MJ included - that will fair well in such a gimmicky defensive scheme. How do you expect him to have room to shoot the ball when two or three guys from the opposing team were literally on your back like being on horseback funneling you, in this case, James-the-Beard-Harden, to the big man in Gobert. If he forced the shot, you guys would be the first to criticize him for doing so. If you guys think it's easy to operate or shoot effectively under the condition James-the-Beard-Harden found himself in the Jazz series, tell me another player in the league or in the past that will not be abysmal than what you saw in the Beard in this series. The guy impacted the series in different ways throughout the series and still led in scoring. You guys are beginning to upset me with your ranting about James-the-Beard-Harden. No wander Houston Rockets fans are considered the worst fans in NBA if the guys in this forum are the microcosmic of the Rockets fans. And you wonder why national media do not respect the Rockets of the city -- its people like you in this forum. If you don't respect what you got, other people certainly will not. What do you expect from him? To score 50 points nightly as in the regular season? I can see now, some of you that profess to be Rockets fans, will now opt to Damian Lillard of the Trailblazer as their new NBA darling because he scored 50 points in playoff. Tell me if he was draped over as James-the-Harden was in the Jazz series, he would score that much point? The fact is, you guys are no Rockets fans, but you camouflage as one. Your critics of Harden are not about matter of facts but about blind absurdity. Let's call a spade a spade, you guys are no fans. For the Jazz series, I give James-the-Beard-Harden an A+++
Now we’re not fans if we have a different opinion. Lmaooooo... anyways he’ll play better this series. Rockets in 6
just curious considering jazz's whole defensive strategy was designed to stop harden at all costs which player do you think would have done a better job than harden?
for an MVP level player, C. im surprised ppl here giving him a B, that means he must be playing A+++ if we want to win vs the Warriors because their A wont cut it.
I'd have to give him a C+. The defensive effort, though with some lapses, was encouraging. However, offensively he fell fall short of the expectations he set for himself during the season. As the series wore on he began to look like the playoff Harden we all dread seeing.
What are we grading him against? I use his best game as an A. So did he play his best? Not to me. It was a B. Solid performance but definitely room to improve.
You do this every time... I’m analyzing harden... who could and should go down as one of the greatest players ever to play and had another playoff series with subpar shooting percentages
It’s gimmicky and it took the Jazz two games to adjust. It’s because of Harden that we got two wins by 52 points and made it a 2-0 series. That effectively ended the series. He definitely could have played better (I graded him a B), but he was the main reason we won this series in 5.
By the way people expecting James to average anywhere near 36 a game is stupid. That was a result of CP3, Gordon and Capela being injured a lot and he was forced to shoot an unnatural number of shots to keep us afloat. Idealy he should be averaging 28 a game with good decision making. If Harden has to score 40 a game, we ain't winning ****
