Real Talk: The Rockets are Held Captive by Harden's Mood Swings

Howard really sucked tonight. I mean there were loose balls he didn't seem to interested in grabbing. it was really alarming the lack of energy he shows at times.

 

You know Harden was only on him for 6 of those points, right?

 

I agree. Time to start locking these threads, just make one "Harden Haters Club." thread and migrate them all there.

 

he always gives up pointz. if it wasnt hayward, it was whoever he was guardig.

 

No, actually I think the game was lost in the first quarter when they came out lazy and didn't play hard on defense.

They let a crappy team get hot, and they paid the price for it.

I was not surprised that they lost you could see it coming, they just did not compete hard until the end, leaving no margin for error and the Jazz hit shots late - it can happen when you let crappy teams build confidence.

At the end of the day - our team is still really young and really does not have a leader out there, we have a lot of talented players but no one like Dream or Jordan that forced their teamates to play harder....we have guys that want to do well, but are not committed on both ends all the time.

Dwight, James...both are wonderful players, but are not guys who BURN to win the game - they coast too often, and when your best players coast, you lose to crappy teams like this...

Honestly, arguably the most important player on the Rockets is Parsons, he is the one we can't afford to lose....

DD

 

this about a guy who scored 37 and 8 assists.. interesting.. what about saving some of the blame for our second star who couldnt even get double digit rebounds???? that possession where jazz got 2 offensive boards in howards mug then scored a 2 would have been huge bc i dont think they play as loose if we had gone up on them

 

It's not mood. It is consistent effort.

Consistent effort to play D. Push the ball. Keep the ball moving.

 

exactly and i think we saw the difference he makes on the defensive end also.

 

lin brings a level sense of consistency too..

we are missing our yin to the yang of howard and harden in lin/parsons

the entire team concept is more evident with the two on the floor

 

+1

This is why Parsons is my favorite player. Even when he is having an abysmal game at least he is trying. Just a little effort this game is won by 10..

5 games lost by poor to terrible competition. I wonder where the Rockets will make up those games, if they will at all. Guaranteed these 5 games will be the difference between a 3 seed and 5 seed. Rockets do not want to play the Clippers in the first round at the 4/5 match-up.

this next game cant come soon enough.

 

How do you suck balls despite putting up 37 points and 8 assist? I guess it was the fact that he outplayed the best player on the other team?

I must be confused... because to me it looked like harden was the best player on the court tonight.

I think Howard is the main problem tonight. How many of Heywards point were off of layups where the was nobody at the rim for help defense?

 

Just in time for Christmas! The new Harden jerseys are in!
Get your 'zero D' jersey now.

 

so he didn't suck, stop looking at as a half empty glasss

 

Man shut up , no player is above reproach on this team

 

This loss had nothing to do with moodiness.

We were missing a crucial player in Parsons. Jones came back down to earth like a rock. Our 3's weren't falling for the first time in a couple weeks... This just isn't surprising for a young squad, playing on the road, missing 2 of their best playmakers. One of which happens to be our best perimeter defender.

It just isn't a big deal. It will happen again at some point. There's no reason to freak out and try coming to an all encompassing theory of what they are/aren't capabable of after a bad game.

 

Only in Houston is the worst defensive player in the NBA considered their beyond reproach best player. smh.

 

Nobody is above reproach, but the vast majority of criticisms are premature, devoid of context, and way past the point of reason and logic.

It's always [player-X/coach] SUCKS /what a joke / worst in NBA / needs to be traded/fired

People don't understand, building a team and winning games is like a solving a Rubik's Cube. When you move one piece, everything changes. You don't just pop the pieces out and rearrange them and pop them back in.

 

I 100% agree. Harden is talented enough to put up 37, but still have a TERRIBLE game overall. Why? Because he sleep walks through long stretches of the game. He thinks he can coast and then turn it up the last few minutes of the game every nite. Thats not what superstars do. There's a difference between playing bad defense and playing half azz defense, and Harden's D is definitely half azz. Had he even attempted to guard Haywood we'd had won this in the 3rd quarter

 

Dwight operates in extremes, it seems. It's why I hate to criticize him, b/c I know I'll be loving him the next game lol. Sometimes he's visibly irritated, shrugging, looking over it. Other times, he's the scrappiest guy on the floor, hustling and fighting on every possession. I know his reputation, but I haven't paid enough attention to speculate that it depends on how involved he is offensively.

 

This is my favorite post in this thread.

We are missing 2 key players. Calm down people.