KD is a choker too, so he went and stacked the deck by going to GS KD wasn’t as good in the postseason as he was in the regular season until he joined GS the year he won MVP, his PER went from 29.8 to just 22.6 in the playoffs, and his efficiency went from 63.5% TS all the way down to 57...media didn’t care tho because they had Russ there to soak up all the blame
Harden is slightly worse in the playoffs than he is in the regular season. But it’s all relative, because he’s still excellent. The majority of stars play at about the same level in the playoffs. He’s on that list. It’s rare to have a player be significantly better when the playoffs start. Jordan was. Hakeem was. Westbrook is actually on that list. But he’s also a lesser player than Harden, so he’s not necessarily a superior playoff performer. If that spurs game 6 never happened, the narrative is probably not as strong. It’s unfair to him but he’s really only got one way to change it. But it’s annoyingly disingenuous for the media to harp on him and him alone for playoff “failures”. The Rockets have been in the conference finals 2 of the last 4 years. We haven’t won yet but to say Harden hasn’t been in successful playoff runs is just flat out stupid. Anthony Davis can barely get his team into the playoffs where they flounder and get run off. You’ll never hear about it.
His free throw could decrease from 9.3 to 7.8. His 3FG% could go down too. The key: Paul and Gordon's 3FG needs to improve from 33% to 40% in the playoffs.
