Your coach, and your experience. Every elite defensive team in the nba has has its core together for going on for years. Miami since 2010-11, Indiana too, San Antonio since dirt was young. The only team I've ever seen come together as an elite defensive team almost immediately was that Celtics team, but you're talking about a veteran team there with players like Tony Allen off the bench. Even Miami's defense was lousy over the first half of the season, and realistically they didn't look great until part way through year 2 (their conference just had a freeway to the finals)
You can't really prove it is effort either way, that always feels like some talking point to me. Could just be lack of focus and having bad habits. To say he goes through entire games giving 0 effort on defense would be lying. I'd argue that he more often loses focus and just like MANY of our perimeter defenders tends to follow the ball and not understand where all players are on the court. (How many guys are lost running on screens? That is NOT just a Harden problem for THIS team) there is no proof to the whole "He doesn't care!" mess, it's all people reading body language and that's as good as the eye test is it not? It could just be honest mental mistakes he's making. Seems when anyone else gets backdoored no one screams "LAZY! LACK OF EFFORT!" but that play is meant to catch players off guard and focusing on something else. This is part of the argument though, because if you read through the thread many people are convinced that if you replace Harden with George that we'd win a championship and would have some kind of elite level defense. Any ways you are one of the few trying to have a reasonable debate about this, so I'm done for the night.
He was guarding him in the entire 1st quarter and Hayward ate him up for 17 points. Of course Harden is not the only problem, who said he was pimp? This thread is about JH and PG so why are you bringing up tonights game and its team defensive flaws by our perimeter players. Lol
Lin fans like so called htown baller who probably doesn't live in Houston and was a Knicks fan before Lin arrived hate James because bashing James equals propping Lin up.
The post I was replying to was one of those about how Paul George would replace Harden and we'd have a better team defense. That is the context of that post. Not abotu Harden vs George, but the impact a player can have with team defense. All I will say about this is, there is a reason some coaches always have good team defenses. It's not a coincidence.
No he wasn't, Garcia started on him, Brewer ended on him, Harden was in between. He guarded him almost all of the 4th though.
]Lin fans like so called htown baller who probably doesn't live in Houston and was a Knicks fan before Lin arrived hate James because bashing James equals propping Lin up.[/QUOTE] Joker please , been a Rocket fan since the freaking 80's. So please stop that nonsense. Dude you are hilarious, dont mistake me for one of those Loh bwhahaha. Harden is my favorite player on this team. On the cool yall need to give that **** some rest. Its all about the Rockets and not just one player. All because a member joined last year doesn't mean they are Lin only fans.
Actually, while some of Harden's lapses you could attribute to lack of focus, some of them are clearly a result of effort. Does lack of focus explain the following types of lapses? -Not raising hands to contest some nights, raising his hands other nights -Standing still and swiping at the ball instead of moving his feet some nights, while other nights he moves to stay in front of his man -Not keeping his hands outward to reduce passing lanes, while other nights he does keep his hands out -Being in defensive stance sometimes, but other times standing straight legged That he does those things inconsistently indicates that he *knows* those are things he Should be doing. That those are all fundamental basics of Basketball defense that are taught in High School makes it hard to believe that he is ignorant of what he is supposed to be doing. Sure, attribute ball watching to bad habits. You could even attribute losing his man sometimes to lack of focus. Maybe even moving too far off his man and having someone do a back cut. However, basic defensive stance? Raising hands? Swiping at the defender? That's classic, lazy defense. Ask any basketball coach from High School to AAU to Division I/II what they think of someone in the NBA who can't be bothered to raise their hands to contest a shot. Or to take a basic defensive stance? Really, you can only rationalize so much away. Bad habits? Sure, it's possible. Loss of focus? Sure, it's possible. All of the above as well? That stretches the realm of credulity....
I think everybody would agree with this. However...it's important to remember that Harden has been playing hurt. It's often overlooked. Rockets are still adjusting to the addition of Dwight as well, while Indiana has it's core team all returning from last year.
Lol one more thing , I guess Bill, Bull and Calvin where wrong too, when they said Hayward was Hardens man huh. They were talking about Hardens defense as well, but I guess you disagreed with them as well. Hahaha
And thanks for making our point. Even with Dwight the Rockets suck on D because Harden is a terrible defender and gives up on plays constantly. Thanks for finally admitting it.
You said Harden was on him for all of the first quarter, he wasn't You're also allowed to use your nose for breathing
Notice how this clown was missing after the Hawks and the Spurs game(he was probaly at jeremylin.net bad mouthing us) after the lin injury, but he has crawled out of his hole after we lost without lin to rag on Harden. LOL.
Paul George is a great offensive player as well as a great defensive player. I watch him play and he scores so easily. The should nickname him " Mr. Smooth", because he has swag. He's the complete package and he's only 23 years old. He can only get better.
Dude. Ive been watching Rockets games since your daddy was your age. Im guessing 12 or so. Ive been on clutchfans since the late 90s. Eat a turd you non basketball knowing cretin. Oh and for the record....Harden chooses to never try hard on D. Regardless of win or loss. It would probably be good for you to hit the third grade grammar classes again. Sentence structure and punctuation is all of our friends. You know, the same third grade class you seemed to of failed a few years back. Carry on with your douce baggery.
So I rewatched the first quarter looking at Utah's scoring. Here was Harden's impact on defense. He had 6 points scored on him, 4 of them in transition when he had been trailing someone else's man in a race down the court (I think we all know Harden isn't making the olympic track team), there was 2 points scored on him in the half court, the matador play. He also created 2 turnovers, 1 leading to an easy layup. The rest of the time, he was generally not in the play, 80% of the time, his opponent never even touched the ball. Yet Dirkadirkafans were blaming Harden's defense for the first quarter.
