Harden says he plays too much to maintain defensive focus

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">James Harden had a nice evening on defense. His defensive rating was 92.2.</p>&mdash; Calvin Watkins (@calvinwatkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/calvinwatkins/status/672282052612386817">December 3, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Basketball is a 2 way game... If you have any type of ability to score, not just as a shooter, you should easily be able to put in the effort to defending. The best scrubs in basketball maintain their job by hustling to defend when they don't have the talent to score. In fact, playing basketball doesn't even feel right if you don't focus on defending first. How can you be so offensively gifted yet a sorry defender? Where's the balance in that? If you get back on D and play defense there's less of a chance the opposing team goes on a fast break which helps reserve energy for the offensive end.

 

This is why you have to watch the games and understand how numbers are derived. We were playing the Pels. They're awful. They have no offensive cohesion. Just plain terrible. Even a little bit worse than us at running offensive sets. Harden gets burned by Gordon multiple times but Gordon simply misses shots. Harden gets burned by Evans. But the offense is so convoluted that the Pels cannot capitalize. We get a pile of turnovers because of their stupidity, throwing the ball to Ajinca in the circle and Ajinca comes blasting down the lane smack into Brewer whose been standing there hanging out for a week. And so Harden gets a 92 defensive rating and it appears he played great defense.

No.....he didn't.

We were simply playing a crappy team. We shoulda been up by 30 at the start of the 4th with our starters iced already.

Gotta watch the games.

 

Who said anything about great defense? Chad Watkins said he had a "nice evening on defense." likely eye test. And provided a stat to support the difference, since ppl love stats.

Harden's defense was so horrendous, it's easy to see games where the effort is there at 2015 levels. And I contend that I've seen a difference in defensive effort for more than just the last game, back to JB taking over.

It's more than that for you.

You "gotta watch the games" without wearing your agenda-colored glasses looking for anything to prove your cfnet post correct.

 

I'm just gonna post this here and walk away....

thank you heyp

 

Believe it or not he played pretty hard on defense in the home loss agaisnt the Knicks, eye test and having the best D-rating on the team by far (though the ROckets were abysmal by most standards non Defense, just harden and Capela were not nearly as abysmal as everybody else.) as well as 2 blocks and 3 steals.

 

Maybe, just maybe, if you don't always go ISO, and jack up 20+ shots a game at <40%, then you might have some energy left on the other end of the floor.

Is there anyone other than Kobe Bryant allowed to jack up that many shots a game with such a low shooting %?

 

Russel Westbrook easily and he gets drilled for the shots he takes. Harden is knocking on the door of taking the same type of shots if he continues to play the way he's been playing.

 

Capela tried swiping the 1st shot and blocking the 2nd. Great hustle. Other than that i saw a franchise player wearing #13 not attepmt to rebound or contest. Thats our star.

 

Yea, Westbrook is not that good in that area either, but he shoots almost 47%, which is decent in today's NBA.

 

The Rockets needed a backup big 4/5 and when the Spurs departed with their spare change big men Baynes and Splitter, Morey made no effort to try to sign them or work out any kind of deal. Championship big men that went to the school of Tim Duncan are hard to come by.

 

i see you're only looking at this year. westbrook has always been a questionable shot taker . I was simply answering your question. I don't expect westbrook's % to remain that high.

 

also if he even is able to maintain 47% which again I doubt, that's more than just decent in today's NBA. that's actually great for a guard

 

I don't' even get how this number is figured out. I can't stand when Tweets like this are sent out. So many things can be said if you watched the game.

 

Oh I'm sorry but dropping Defrating based on ONE game immediately lowers the credibillity in knowledge of ANY bball stats, I have for a person who tweets that.

 

Baynes got a hefty contract and HOW do you know that Morey wasn't interested in Splitter?
The Spurs traded with their best buddies the Hawks. Not a mere coincidence.
As it isnt' coincidence the Hinkie/Morey trades.
Relationships between GMs MATTER.

 

defense is all about effort first.

this is about effort and attitude, more than anything else.

 

Points allowed per 100 possessions when he is on the floor.

Real high level math, I think you need a fancy graphing calculator to figure it out.

 

Agree 100%

 

My thing is just cover your guy. Be present. He sags in the paint and his dude gets ball for an easy three all the time. Corey Brewer does this a lot too. At least Ty Lawson and Bev stay with their man. Even worse, when they sag, they don't help on anything. I have nothing against Harden. He does it all for this team. Bu on defense, you have got to cover your man and at least be in position. It's not a lapse. It's lazy. Tell us it won't happen again on your watch. Maybe you wouldn't have to work so hard on offense if you played a little defense.