Grade James Harden's 1st Round Performance

This is ****ing stupid. Football is NOTHING like basketball. Football you get maybe 10-12 possessions per game. You run the ball to keep your possession alive.

 

How much of those attempts were wide open? and even so, Harden still needs to take them until he gets better. If you don't even try, then you never get better at it.

 

have you not watched GS ever? pretty telling. GS doesn't employ some primary ball handler like Houston does. The have like 4 guys on the floor who handle the ball at all different times. The only person not ball handling is the likes of Bogut, Looney, bell, etc

 

You also run the ball so the safteys and linebackers are not 100% committed to the passing game. Infact that is the more important reason.

 

lol i have no idea why he thought that even applied. somehow the NBA game and NFL game became connected. oh cf's you amaze me sometimes

 

if football has less possessions per game, doesn't that mean every single possession is more valuable in football than in basketball? so why are they 'wasting' possessions like that in football when analytics tell them otherwise?

 

Because they're stupid. Lots of football tactics are downright dumb and haven't changed out of sheer arrogance. Look at punting on 4th down.

https://www.insidescience.org/news/math-football-coaches-be-more-aggressive-4th-down

Analytics changed baseball and now basketball. It will come to football too.

 

I'm not sure, I don't know if there's a way to filter that out. Either way, though, if you look up Curry and Durant, they aren't even in the same stratosphere as Harden. Durant shot over 55% from mid range this year. Curry shot 60% last year. It's not like Harden is just off by a couple percentage points.

 

You really think the passing game would work well in the NFL if the defense knows that the next play is definitely going to be a pass?

 

The Rockets are not the Warriors and CP3/Gordon are not Durant/Thompson. Teams can do this to the Rockets because of this.

The gimmick defense isn't solely to stop Harden, it is to negate everyone else in the process. It is forcing him to make the least efficient play in regards to how the Rockets play and their personnel. You give Harden a shooter like Thompson and a player like Durant and their will be no gimmick defense like we saw.

It isn't a knack on Harden's game but on the Rockets personnel/style of play.

 

Worked for the Patriots hasn't it. Who decided to use the TE as a giant wide receiver?

 

It's definitely a knack on Harden's two dimensional non varied offensive style.

 

The Patriots call zero run plays over the course of a game?

54% of the Patriots plays were pass plays in 2018.

 

nah, this mostly has to do with the way Harden plays, inclduing ISO ball. Maybe if he wasn't so ISO-centric doggystyle defense wouldn't be as effective, but adding Durant or Klay to this lineup doesn't change that Harden sucks at off-ball movement and is very limited from the midrange.

 

This, the Warriors offense is very different than the Rockets. The Warriors offense isn't even remotely close to the offense that they ran when they won their first title. The Warriors rely heavily on ball movement. In part that is because they don't have anyone that is elite at putting the ball on the floor and creating. They do have 3 of the top 15 shooters in NBA history on the floor, so their system is predicated on getting those players open looks, sometimes with passes out of the post by Green or (now) Bogut.

As a result the Warriors typically are more efficient shooting that the Rockets........ but there is a cost for everything. The cost for the Warriors is the possibility of higher turnovers from so many touching the ball and also less free throws. The Rockets are the complete opposite. That is also why the Rockets give the Warriors problems and are CAPABLE of beating a Warriors team in a series through variance, injuries to the Warriors or continued decline of the Warriors.

This Rockets team, the last two seasons has been specifically made to beat the Warriors..... it wasn't specifically made to beat the Jazz or the Bucks or anyone else. The idea being that if you have enough match ups against the Warriors, with variance, the Rockets can beat them at some point.

 

First of all he shouldnt be left by himself by MDA... run some sets for ya boy with CP on ball. Thats like junior high lvl coaching and we all know MDA has sets for life, time to utilize them against gsw

 

that's just chicken or the egg situation. Harden is mediocre from the midrange because he never practices it and rarely takes them during games. If he can master stepback threes, I see no reason why he can't master a much easier shot, especially when left wide open.

 

Finally something we agree on

 

A "B" grade. Overall decent. ESPN has a caption saying he generated the 2nd most points for his teammates in this playoffs

 

Steph Curry is the second best ballhandler in the league.