he needs to move off the ball, that's not something thats debatable. Its a basic tenant/principle of basketball. MJ moved more than harden did off the ball. Dude needs to ditch his lazy ****ing iso plays. It isn't 100% on him though, the offense has to be designed to facilitate this, aka Mike/Morey. We all saw what happened to CP3 when he brought this up last seaosn though
Yup. I think a fault of my desires for this team now are the changes I believe need to happen I'm expecting them to happen in between playoff games when realistically it can only happen in an entire off-season of practice. For Harden to move off the ball, his teammates also have to move in sync with him or else hell just run into a teammate on offense. It has to be in sync where Harden moving off ball in tandem with his teammates to create the best possible spacing. It's going to take an entire off-season to implement this. Can't expect this drastic of a change in the middle of the playoffs.
I mean literally the only way to know if it would work, would be to TRY IT OUT. Or we can lose in the second round again, lol. All I know is from watching, playing and coaching basketball for 40 years, its harder to guard someone moving than standing still. If that person standing still wants to stand still near half court, even better... let him
Losing by 10 or losing by 30 is irrelevant. It’s still an L. At this point what they are doing clearly isn’t working.
He's doing what the coaching staff is asking him to do. Asking Harden to run after getting double teamed is not something you see a lot of guys do. Even in that Michale Jordan clip you never saw him move off ball when the double came. Can you even find me film of running after the double team for players..... You act like "off ball" is just some end all be all that's gonna produce efficient offense when it fact it could just produce more turnovers. Like way more. Especially when we dont have playmakers on the team. And no Westbrook and Gordon arent making those coinstent passes without turning it over a ton. Look at what happens here when Curry gets trapped.
Its worse than that, because when they do recover and the ball goes back to Harden, even if he's open, he will wait for a defender to come, or two.
Losing by 10 and losing by 30 is still losing. They're losing by 10 now. But its not just about now, as in right now, this series. This is a mutli-year, multi-game thing, as a thousand people have pointed out statistically and just by the eye test. You can win a championship with Harden, this style, with the right other talent around him. The Rockets don't have that. Risk/reward. Which ironically is what DM has been all about. They're upside with this roster and style right now is NOT A CHAMPIONSHIP. So increase risk, to try and get increased rewards.
So you want to take the chance on Harden moving off the screens while completely killing our chances, sorry we cannot afford to have more turnovers, we'll straight up get obliterated, the passing is not good enough on this team for it to go like that. You won't get any , you will just get more turnovers, they are getting 4 on 3 situations right now, how do you think it's going to be when they have to find Harden and the defense knows it. Its just straight up handing things to the defense.
The Lakers defense is OBLITERATING the Rockets. Not sure how much more obvious this can be. The 3 pa differential combined the last 2 games is 3. 63 for the Rockets, to 60 for the Lakers. The ENTIRE Rockets system of basketball is broken with the defense the Lakers are playing. I can hope and dream that Russ does something different, or the role players somehow get 20x better. But it will just be hopes and dreams. Should Harden start zig zagging all over the court? No. That's NOT what we're asking. We're asking him to MOVE. Just a little. He can still move, without cutting, cutting, cutting. I'd love cuts, but recognize that isn't happening. But put a little bit of effort into a quick move to get open, that's it. Heck, try making it across the halfcourt line before the shot clock is at 18 seconds. You know, stuff like that.
IF they were OBLITERATING us, wed be losing by 20 every game, the fact is, weve been losing these games in the middle of the 4th. Our offense needs to be better yea, Dantoni needs to adjust. But its not as simple as USE JAMES OFF BALL, MOVE HARDEN, then everything will get better without any problems. With the exception of ONE GAME lol...ONE, he's been giving us Superstar production and actually has better offensive stats than Lebron this series. Him moving doesnt mean crap if we dont have any good playa makers on this team. All this leads to is more turnovers. Like all these quick zips and cuts you are talking is not something I see a lot of players do after being doubled. They do make better reads out of traps but that's it.
We've gotten in massive holes in a few of these games. But look, you keep coming back to the "well, it's kind of close" argument. Who cares? These are NBA teams, and players. Harden is an MVP. Russ was an MVP. Their role players know how to be role players. Teams don't get blown out consistently, especially in the playoffs. And by the way it hasn't been "kind of close" at the end of games. Losing by 10 points is effectively a big loss. I'm pretty sure if you bet if you took Rockets + whatever, you would have lost money, cause i don't think they were supposed to lose either game by 10. They've now lost by 8,10,10 three straight games. Or let me put it another way. In Harden's entire playoff career, he's lost three straight games by 8 or more points only once before, but that was over 2 playoffs and all to GSW (the 2 to end the WCF with Dwight, and Game 1 of the following disaster year). The odds of the Rockets losing 3 straight in the playoffs this year by 8 or more points was probably EXTREMELY low. Worth noting: Harden once lost 7 straight playoff games - the 4 to lose the NBA Finals with OKC, and the first 3 the next year against OKC. I think people take it as an affront if you criticize Harden. The goal here is to win the game. I don't need to look at stats to tell me how Harden has performed. He's been solid, but has done the thing he ALWAYS does, EVERYTIME things get tough, and that's look disinterested, and become passive. It is what it is. I can't make the rest of the players magically better. But getting Harden to simply HUSTLE a bit more is a SIMPLE change that shouldn't magically create more turnovers (btw, Harden has 5 turnovers ANYWAYS in 3 of 4 games here).
And THERE is the rub, no Russ is not an MVP. If you look the impact metrics, Harden is only behind AD and Lebron these playoffs. The difference you are seeing is NOT "Oh Harden is getting figured out, no off ball." The differnece is Harden has terrible spacing to work with and Russ is a terrible fit next to him and he's been a HORRIBLE playoff performer. That's why you are seeing these results and that's why we lose going into the end of games because of RUSS ONLY lineups.
Nobody is failing to understand this. On the contrary, we (or at least I), 100% understand this. I am simply proposing the tiniest of changes that is something that can actually happen. I can't change how good Russ is at shooting. Effectively what we are asking for is MORE pace. In half court. in full court, whatever.
