We all know Harden will go down as an All-Time Great, but one this that has lost us a lot of games this year, is his lack of getting others involved. How many late game Possessions have we lost due to him just dribbling into a step back three? Granted when they go in it’s great, but even when we have big leads in the 3rd quarter he goes on a 5 possession rant, where he only hits 1 shots and now a 13 point lead is down to 6. The one thing i want from Harden is to learn when to be James Harden, and when to be Chris Paul....thoughts??
His teammates also need to have the mindset that they can do something on offense too. They don't always have to defer to Harden.
Yeah James can totally control Tucker’s cold streak (before this game) He can also control Greens terrible slump. He can totally control Capela being out injured. Oh and he can also control Austin Rivers turning back into trash. You’re right man Harden needs to learn.
Lol. Why do you think Harden takes it upon himself? I'm sure even he gets annoyed at all the wide open looks he gets teammates to watch them brick it 25 games a night. Why do you act like he doesn't pass the ball?
Problem is he creates the stale tempo without even realizing it. People stop running when he dribbles all day
We have one of the best playmaking PGs of all time on our team who does a splendid job of involving EVERYONE on the team and what do we do? Put the ball in the hands of one of the biggest ball-stoppers of all time b/c apparently we’re more interested in individual stats. It has been so much more entertaining to see Chris orchestrate the offense tonight AND MORE EFFECTIVE by setting up others to get EVERYONE involved. I am sure when Harden is out there dribbling for over half the shot-clock doing his dribble between the legs routine, the other players must know they're not going to get a chance to get involved in the offense and play as a team, so I am sure it is deflating and probably knocks them out of the mindet to score. I don't see the coaching staff or Morey wanting to change the status quo though b/c they've so defended the current Harden ISO-madness routine, I don't think they would want to eat crow at this point, but it has been really nice to see Chris run the show.
Harden needs to watch this game for sure. Have the rockets had a 20 point lead recently? Lol give me a break
My thoughts are you guys get too caught up all this ball movement and don't realize that our offense is worse with him out. First half this game was 61 points in 56 possessions, thats a 109 offensive rating. You love the assists and you hate watching Harden dribble into a missed stepback but guess what, we get more points that way. It's a fact, it's math, you can't argue it. Maybe you like watching this better, you like the passing, you like the energy, but we scored less points than we normally do. You can argue all day about energy and defensive effort and you may have a point, but in terms of the offense, this offense that you're watching is worse than Harden dribbling the air out of the ball. It's worse than our normal.
it is too early for this but there's some truth to this, I think that's what made us so dangerous last year. Teams would think they should expect to get killed by the harden ISO and boom we stick em with the paul ball movement or midrange. They expect that and boom harden steps back in their face. Hopefully we can pull this out tonight!