At this point of the season, we've now played every team currently in the top 10 in defensive rating, with the exception of the Raptors. Here's how Harden has fared in his most recent game against the other 9 teams: (pts-rbs-ast-stl-blk) OKC – 41-6-7-2-1 IND – 40-7-9-1-1 MIL – 42-11-6-2-1 UTA – 47-6-5-5-0 BOS – 45-2-6-0-1 LAL – 50-10-11-2-0 MEM – 57-9-2-2-1 MIA – 35-6-12-2-0 TOR – n/a DEN – 32-4-14-1-1 That is the definition of badass. He's decimated the best defenses the NBA can throw at him. None of them had a plan that worked AT ALL. I'm in awe. What Beard is doing lately looks pretty amazing to the eye, but the numbers are even more mind-boggling.
Harden shreds top 10 defenses. https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/s...ied/points/All/desc/1/Opponent_Top_10_Defense Avg 36.1 ppg .449 FG (22.3 attempts) .398 3 pt (12.4 attempts) .848 FT (13 attempts) 7 rpg 7.7 apg Harden shreds bottom 10 defenses https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/s.../points/All/desc/1/Opponent_Bottom_10_Defense 35.1 ppg .482 FG (22 attempts) .444 (12.4 attempts) .875 FT (9.6 Attempts) 5.8 rpg 9.9 apg (good for 2nd) Notice how Curry is only top 5 in 1 of these list (#2 in top 10 bottom defense) cuz hed not even top top 10 in scoring against the top 10 defense, yet Harden leads both efficiently.
Overall season 3FG% Curry: .450 Harden: .379 3FG% against top 10 defenses Curry: .402 Harden: .398 Curry shoots worse from 3 against good defenses, while Harden shoots better. Which makes perfect sense, because Curry relies on teammates to get open or semi-open looks from 3. Good defenses make that difficult. Harden creates his own space, and does it well against almost any defender.
Not only is he shooting worse, look at the scoring disparity for Curry. Harden scores more against top 10 defenses (36.1 ppg) than his season avg (34.8 ppg) and against bottom 10 defense (35.1 ppg). Curry, on the other hand, avg 28.9 ppg for the season, 33 ppg against bottom 10 defense, and it drops of to 21.9 ppg against top 10 defenses. That was shocking for me to see that.
