Harden is only 6'5 and isn't a high leaper. When he attacks the rim it's hard for him to finish over a defender. I just think teams are defending him well.
The Rockets are not setting enough good screens........ Opposing defenders now know what his game is, and have adjusted.
Maybe the first two games was fool's gold. After the road trip, everybody including the coaches, teammates and Harden himself believed that he was the savior and he could do it all. Now defenses know if you shut Harden down, the Rockets have no other options. Our offense is incredibly predictable.
Better defenders in the western conference team and the simple offense we are running is wide open for opposing teams to study and game plan to defend against basically removing him from the game unless he draws fouls. Remove the driving ability of Harden and Lin, you just get a bunch of jump shooters because that is the way we have played as a team.
It's probably been said, but his moves become predictable because he tends to put the ball out in front. He leaves it unprotected, which usually doesnt matter because he fakes defenders out anyway, but they're catching on now that they see him more. Its hard to protect the ball when you're stretched out, which he usually is because he takes long strides, not enough stability to hold the ball tightly, so it gets poked away. He's strong enough to just go running back on defenders. He should try that more. Stop trying to deceive defenders so much, make more strong and quick moves.
It seemed he was looking early for the refs to call fouls, and he had some right in feeling that way, the officials were bad both ways, but it was heavy on us. Bloody, Shoving, etc... was ridiculous.
Offense will always be predictable when you only have one guy who can score. It was the same way when we had Yao/Tmax and no supporting cast. You have to think that our turnovers will go down as these guys get more time together, so that will help. But we need a front court player to average 15 ppg or more if we want to make the playoffs. Morey is hoping one of these young guys will step up and if they don't I hope he makes another move before the all-star break. It would suck to end up being a lottery team again with no draft pick.
This. I said this a bunch of times. Teams are going to put there best defender on James & then just pack the paint. Lin & Harden are at there best attacking the basket. They were like top 10 in FTA last year. Lin had 1 FTA & Harden had like 2 or something. That is all you need to know. Harden isn't struggling per se he is just not surrounded by enough talent.
He had a couple of bad shooting games. Relax. He'll be fine. James is an elite shooter and the shots will start to fall for him.
He hasn't gotten any Kobe or Lebron love from the refs, either. He was hacked all night tonight against Denver and refs didn't blow the whistle. He was also hacked hardcore by Mathews on the final play of that Portland game which should have won us the game. If Harden changed his last name to James or Bryant, Rockets would be 4-0 right now.
Neither player is getting decent screens from the bigs....... Since no advantage is created off the screens, the defense can then stay at home. No open shots. And a lot of turnovers. Plain and simple. Ty Lawson was getting a bunch of screens at the other end, penetrated, and forced defensive rotation. Unlike the Rockets, the Nuggets' threes were open shots. And a scrambling defense doesn't rebound as well as one that stays at home.
Pick and Roll with Asik has looked TERRIBLE. Bad timing on Asik's end and bad passing on some instances on Harden's end. Smith is the only guy I've seen that has worked well with Harden on PnR. Maybe switch the line up to have Asik at the 5, Smith at the 4, and then have PPatt and Aldrich come in as back ups? Just my personal thoughts.
Not if he doesn't get any screens to penetrate off of...... No player can consistently beat his man without a screen.
8-33 for 3 pts. If folks can't hit their 3's, then they're not going to get open lanes and the paint will be packed with people.
Yet another pointless thread. Wait a month then come back and post something like this. This is a typical knee jerk reaction, one bad game and he's struggling. Give me and the rest of ClutchFans a break.
This needs to be repeated a 1000 times. THis is the crux of our back courts problems. And it will be like this against better defensive teams. No individual is regressing or struggling we just don't have enough talent on the roster.
Everybody has bad games. Especially young players. Can't expect them to score 40 every night. Tonight our offensive game was bad. There were no plays for Harden. It was all pick n rolls or Iso.
