No, this is not knee jerk. This has actual data. The last 21 games he has been averaging sub 40% shooting. That is not a small sample size. For the month of March he is averaging 38.9 FG percentage. For the month of April he is averaging 40.3 FG percentage. His next lowest month was in November when he averaged 41.2 pct and that was when he was adjusting. Of all the times to start bricking now is not the time. Harden does not suck, but there is clearly something wrong with him. This is not the efficient Harden that has led us to the playoffs. Maybe the injury in the Warriors game has affected him more than we know?
I think he might be worn out. It would be nice to see Parsons/Lin/Bev/Smith/Delfino with some more shots and offensive responsibility a game.
As I said in the other thread: THE MAIN PROBLEM: He holds the ball too long. In the first half of season, Lin was doing more handling and when he passed it to Harden, he went to work right away. Now we just bring the ball up and give it to Harden with 20 secs left. We can't do that. The ISO ball isn't working. Its T-Mac all over again. That and too many 3s
hes trying too hard to be the man running down the shot clock and hoisting a contested three is foolish and selfish basketball, PERIOD
It's not his percentage it's his decision making.. Passing the ball with 3 sec left and driving to the lane when the refs are swallowing the whistle..
He doesn't move off the ball anymore and just holds on to the ball. That leaves the defense to know exactly what he's going to do.
Let Aarob Brooks take some of the scoring load off! He is the only other pure scorer on the roster, he could really help out IMO.
Probably should not have won that Suns game. ISO pull up 3 for a miss by Jermaine O'Neal bailed us out. Tired of brick pull up 3s. Harden please stop it, it hurts my soul.
He's injured and not as athletic at the moment - lost some speed and vertical Apart from that, teams ramped up their defense and started packing the paint so his driving was cut down a whole lot imo. This leaves him pounding the ball and makes him too 1-dimensional on offense. I don't think we'll see an effective Harden again this season... he needs some rehab time In other words, he's no longer a triple threat (injury most likely) and he's not being called on his ball-stopping.
His game is easy to figure out. Zero midrange, 3s or drive. Holds ball down to 4 seconds and pass to teammates throwing them under the bus. Looks for the foul first. We went from finesse Kevin martin to physical Kevin Martin.
1. He is worn out; he looks tired. 2. He is relying on fouls that are no longer being called since we are entering the playoffs. 3. Mchale's inability to run plays which makes us predictable. At least JVG had our guys playing defense.
he doesn't have a coach that can actually call plays and tell him what he's doing is wrong. you know actually COACH. if norris cole took 20 shots over lebron he would hear it from spo. if jason terry took 15 t3's he would hear it form doc rivers. but with mchale he'll let it slide because he doesn't know how to coach.
