Yes, Harden's defense is laughably pathetic and even worse than his singing. That said, is it his fault he's been assigned to pretty much to worst possible matchup for him? Making him guard shooters that like to move without the ball is terrible coaching. Harden having to chase those types of players will drain his energy as well. It's not that hard. Regardless of the player, McHale should have Harden guard the weakest offensive threat. It shouldn't be new, considering we had Harden guarding Ibaka at times last year in the playoffs. In the Lakers game, you could even have him on Gasol. Sure, Pau would have his way on Harden, but the worst case scenario is a 2-point basket. Right now, he's guarding high quality shooters who are draining threes.
Defense 101: Keep the ball in your sights and your man in your peripheral vision at every available opportunity. It looks like he is sitting on the split line waiting to pick up Nash but because he had no idea where Blake was, he got exploited. Lazy defense.. The coaches must have raised this issue with him before, yet it continues Does he not want to improve? Egotistical? Lazy? What is the deal..
I think if Harden guarded any rebounding threat, he wouldn't even put the effort in to boxing out. He would just leak out for an outlet pass where he can fast break for his favourite contact layup. Then be non-plussed when our bigs are outnumbered on the boards and cannot secure the rebound
Seems like all he does is stand around thinking, "Now, if I had the ball, I'd ISO like this, and...huh? Where's my man?"
~lol~ Words of wisdom! McHale relegated his only pass-first PG to the bench to ingratiate his scorer's ego, this is what you get, chaos.
How can Steve Blake drain his energy? Besideds, I never see Lebron James, D-Wade, Paul George and Kevin Durant giving up defense.
He saw a big round bootylicious in the first row and couldn't take his eyes off of it. It's not his fault.
LOL. Kind of true. I was going to say it's a junior-high type of mistake. The narcolepsy post a few pages back may be on to something. The way he "wakes up" from his funk in that clip is fascinating, just barely moving his feet and realizing that he is in fact playing in a NBA basketball game. Hrrmmm... gambling is one thing but this (one tiny clip all by itself) is something else.
I'd love to say we're overblowing it and picking on the guy, but watching all these games you can edit those lowlights together every single game whether it's blake, meeks, redick, gerald henderson, etc.
Again, defense is about attitude and mind-set. Harden does not have either. Steve Kerr said it well as commentator on the game. Harden is now a star player. If he wants to be a superstar and wins a ring, he has to play defense. Simple as that. A star play just can't have outscored the other team 10 points with effort, and only let them nullify his scoring by letting them score 10 more because of lack of defense. It's good that Harden wants to be the leader of the team. Please lead by example, not by salary level.
Maybe he's still a little bit injured? But, I really want to know what he was thinking here. Was he thinking Meeks would miss and he could start a fast break?
