[SI] Rockets Unable to Hide Harden's Defense Faults

On the coach. If D is your priority and your star player doesn't play D, than make him accountable.

 

What's stupid is that he was bragging about how much he worked on defense this off season.

Really? What in the world was he working on? Because he's playing terrible defense.

It's one thing if he just gets beat straight-up... but it's another thing if he isn't playing defense CORRECTLY. He has bad fundamentals. He doesn't know what to do.

Those are the things that are easily fixable. So why were they not fixed over the summer when he worked at it so much?

Makes no sense.

 

It's not on the coaches. Surely the team watches tape all the time, and surely everyone, including Harden, sees his defensive performance. Everyone on the Rockets, including Harden, is aware of how he can improve his defense, I'm sure. But then he gets out on the floor in a game and . . . I don't know what's going through his head then.

 

McHale seems to be a "play through it" coach. He doesn't pull Howard in hack-a-Howard: he wants him to play through it and rise above it. Maybe he's the same with Harden's defense. Of course, these are primary guys. He might have a different philosophy for non-all-stars.

 

Kelvin Sampson pretty much called him and Parsons out in the offseason for his defense - didn't really work.

I thought Kelvin took another dig at Harden at the half time interview on Saturday but don't think he has the wherewithal to bench Harden.

 

I don't know... it's just baffling how an NBA player of Harden's level can have worse defensive fundamentals than a high school kid.

 

Maybe he's super lefty, like me. Kinda in outer space. Kinda "in the flow" of the general spatial pattern of the defense rather than following line-by-line instructions. He seems to roam like a free safety or something.

 

D-Mo was awful in the preseason. Just awful. That's the reason he doesn't have more PT this season. He could've easily had Casspi's role this season. Casspi isn't any better at rebounding, shooting, scoring, or running the floor than D-Mo, but Casspi isn't god awful at defense, and D-Mo is.

Good point about Jones, though. I'd like to see him get more minutes. I also haven't seen much of Ronnie Brewer at all, and he's supposed to be above average defensively from what I remember. I wonder if he can work his way into 10-15 minutes of PT if the perimeter defense continues to be an issue.

 

If he's not listening to the coach, the coach deserves some of the responsibility for that. Just like when Asik improved offensively, you give credit to McHale for working with Asik, you also have to blame McHale when Harden refuses to improve defensively.

 

Well he should be floating in space when his man is 2 or more passes away. The problem is that he turns his back on his man and watches the ball.

He should be keeping an eye on both.

 

Harden shouldn't have finished the Clippers game. He wasn't bringing anything offensively and continued to be porous defensively. I don't think you bench him all the time, but nights like that, he shouldn't be out there.

 

Casspi is a lot better at shooting...

 

What can the coach do except bench him? I don't think our team has that luxury. We're not the Spurs.

 

A skill that is a part of coaching is getting your players to listen to you. If you can't get your players to listen, then you aren't a good coach.

Coaches have ways of getting their players to play how they want them to play. All coaches have different philosophies and techniques as far as getting their point across, but it's a part of coaching.

 

Wow. The still images really put things in perspective, and not in a good way. I've gotten on a lot of our other guys about so readily helping off their man... they def do it at times when Harden is not to blame, but he certainly doesn't help the problem.

 

Yes we do. It's early in the season. Starting with Bev/Lin as the backcourt isn't exactly surrendering - especially since Harden will get his 30+ minutes anyways.

The time to address these things is now.

Three things can happen

1. Harden starts showing some effort on defense. Everyone is happy.

2. Harden sulks. This would be very telling...

3. Lin and Bev start BevLinsanity

 

1 + 3 = Ring? :grin:

 

Honestly though, I was hoping he would sit tonight so we could see what a Lin/Bev starting backcourt would look like.

 

It's still early in the season so it's really the perfect time to BENCH him when he makes very obvious defensive lapse over and over. It's good for Harden long term growth. He needs to contribute on the defensive end to make that leap. And he got the ability to!

 

Lets make two assumptions:

1) He is capable of playing better defense
2) But he isnt

Now lets see why this may be:

A) Lazy
B) Saving his energy for the offensive end

Now lets look at the ramifications:

*) He has plenty of energy to play both ends
**) His game would suffer late in games due to lack of energy late in games

I tend to think 1B** is the answer. Anyone else?