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

Follow his tweet and you'll see that many people bashed him when he tweeted a picture of his best friend since grade 6. Really hateful tweets.

That's when Harden replied "Only God can judge me."

I think Harden still has room to grow in becoming more comfortable in himself and more vocal about what he wants or thinks. He tends to keep quiet and then just boil over in frustration sometimes at his teammates. He has no choice but to grow in his leadership.

 

Haters. He beat the Spurs and you guys are complaining about a game in which even Bev. (a defensive specialist) couldn't stay in front of anyone...

If you're going to call one out, call them all out. Or you're just another troll. I mean, who was consistent on the defensive end throughout the game? We couldn't get stops no matter who was on the floor. That's why lost the game.

Don't get me wrong, Harden was bad on defense. But, if it were solely on Harden, we would've taken over once he was out of the game. Didn't happen that way.

You guys have to understand this is only his second season being a franchise player. Now he's learning to be part of a star powered duo. There's no vets getting crucial PT to guide him along. He's learning on the fly. And with Howard not being a closer, Harden has to be that guy. Which requires a lot of energy at the near end of a game.

As far as the McGrady talk, I remember when Tracy was getting accused of the exact same thing. It lead him to go all out on defense the next game, and I was like "where the hell has this guy been all along?". The come closing time, his legs were just absolutely dead and we lost the game. And he was in his prime, rather than a young buck trying to learn when and where to properly exert the necessary energy. Harden, like T-Mac, will never a defensive stalwart. We don't need him to be, like we didn't need Tracy to be. Harden will be adequate as he'll get even stronger and more experienced. More importantly, we'll have a better supporting cast around he and Dwight as time goes on.

 

I am not his Only Fan but I think Lin is also in the same mold as Parsons.
Even more so one is a 2nd rounder and under paid the other was undrafted and waived twice before coming out of obscurity.

Beverley and Jones are the other guys that were underdogs

 

So you mean like it was before July 2012 right?

 

agree. so what if you score 50 pts with sheer talents, in the same game you play harlem globetrotters' defense, your team will still lose.

and with this loss, all heroic effort in the Spurs' game two nights' ago went down the drain.

 

I dunno wtf he's doing. He steps away from the team and is just in gimme mode. Doesnt hustle, play d, move without the ball, cut, or even spot up. He got worse this year.

 

Harden played super last night...on offense; however he got burned on defense time and time again.

Personally I think the Harden isos have--on certain nights like this one--a lot to do with the bad defense overall; we saw that last year too. When Harden does his iso thing the ball becomes "sticky" and guys start standing around just watching; their energy level becomes low and that translates over to the defensive end. The Rox play better when they are active on offense and that activity then translates over to the defensive end.

It's not Harden's fault--I mean heck, if the guy can score than go to him; it's just that it gets everyone else out of their rhythm in terms of energy. Also, Harden himself needs to play some defense and if he maybe didn't have to do so much on the offensive end (i.e. playmake AND primary scorer) he might have more energy to play some defense.

 

Harden played 43/48 minutes.

That said, during the 5 minutes he was off the floor...

http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20131202&game=HOUUTH

Of course, the sample size is too small to say anything definitive. And +6 is pretty far from "taking over", even if it they did cut Utah's lead from 14 to 8.

And no, it's not solely on Harden. However, if you're a max player you take more blame than role players. At least you should if you're going to get a disproportionate amount of credit for wins...

 

Hayward and Burks hit shots last night that they usually miss. These guys shoot under 40% from the field and under 30% from 3. Last night they shot 66%. Some of that is attributable to poor defense from Harden and Brooks. But much of that is just those guys getting unreasonably hot from the field. Alec Burks looks like he's about to fall over when he's shooting, yet he went 3-4 from downtown and even hit contested shots. That's just unusual. Hayward is better, but even he played much better than he has most of this year. He won't play like Reggie Miller every night.

What confused me about this game was why Harden was guarding Hayward for so long. We know Hayward was going to run off multiple screens each time down court, and we know Harden is a poor defender when he's chasing his man all around the court. So then why not put Garcia on Hayward? He's supposed to be our perimeter defender. Instead, Garcia just kept an eye on Richard Jefferson who for the most part just hung around the outside.

Also, let's not forget Trey Burke looking like CP3 last night. We really do have a poor pick-and-roll defense. And that's not on Harden.

 

The Utah commentators were talking about that yesterday also.

They noted pointblank that Harden was not a very good defender, and that a player should not be considered "the best shooting guard in the league" if he doesn't play both sides of the floor. Harpring clarified and said that Harden was "the best shooting guard in the league on offense".

 

I agree with all this ..... but

in lieu of Parsons the most important player on this team is Dwight. We coulda-shoulda won that game last night. We probably woulda won that game last night if Parson had been out there.

However Utah is one of the worst teams in the league. We shoulda been able to beat them without Parsons. And we woulda beat them if only HOWARD had shown up and led with hustle and grit on the floor. Howard was the superior big man playing last night. But he was outplayed by Favors. He wasn't hustling, just standing around being a non-factor. I put this L on Howard. And I agree with the poster above who stated he is the most frustrating Rocket to watch because he can thrill you with his play one night and totally frustrate you the next night and the thing is this organization bent over double to entice him to come here. So he does have his sense of entitlement.

Howard, in my opinion, is a second-class superstar. He's not a nut cracker like CP3, Kobe, Dirk, and Garnett and he's not 48 minutes of brains and intensity like Lebron, Duncan, Parker. Dwight is in the same class as Melo. Wants to win but wants to win by having 4 guys around him that do all the dirty work and play jester to his throne. I don't get that mentality.

 

I think this forum also needs an official scapegoat thread, where posters can look for scapegoats after losses without polluting the rest of the board.

 

Bev atleast TRIES on defense. Big difference

Nobody said this was soley on Harden. But his lack of effort on defense was a HUGE reason we lost. Anytime your man scores 17 points in the first quarter, it's a problem. There were times last nite he basically stepped out of Haywood's way and just let him walk to the basket. Thats worse than playing bad defense, that's not trying. We are not winning a championship if our star player takes possessions off on defense. It's simple basketball

Harden's defense was bad the WHOLE game not just "closing time". Stop making excuses because you like the guy. Hold him accountable like you'd hold any other star player accountable. No excuses

 

Thanks Obama!...


Coach McHale didn't play a single minute, but he deserves as much blame for the loss as anyone on the team! Coach Popovich almost imploded when he thought Parker,and the Spurs weren't giving 100%, that's what a real coach does! Popovich demands and holds you accountable when you don't play hard on both ends of the court! I'm not blaming the loss on Harden/Dwight, it starts from the top and if your coach can't motivate his players when they start playing lazy then I guess were going to have to find someone who can! MOREY GET'R DONE!
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Both of you clowns are wrong - it was mostly Aaron Brooks who was giviing up dribble penetration late (on about 3-4 out of 5 straight possessions). Go back and watch if you don't believe. Why was he even in the game? I don't know, ask McHale. I'd go with Bev-Harden-Garcia but that's just me.


Second, as somebody posted in another thread, it's a complete fallacy that was Harden guarding Heyward on most of his scoring plays in the earlier portions of the game.

None of this is to say that Harden is a great or even good defender last night , but it's laughable how he has become the whipping boy despite completely beasting the Jazz on offense. Even if you assume that he gave up all of Heyward's points, which he did not, he still substantially outplayed him putting up 37 on over 50% shooting with 8 assists.

 

/\ good point.

Popovich was ripping into Parker (of all people, who was having a GREAT game on offense) when Parker decided to take a play off on defense and not go all out to try to contest a shot. I've also seen Pop rip into Duncan for botching a rotation on defense. No good, veteran coach who REALLY cares about winning (i.e. a championship) would have let Harden get away with what he did last night.

 

Right harden still put up 37points, yes he needs to work on D but he still helped out the team more than anyone else. He played alot of mins and had to put the team on his back.

Bev is never held accountable, when you score only 8 points and the other teams pg scores 21 & the SGs score 50 combined that’s a problem. Im not expecting bev to be a lockdown D guy but at least score when the team needs (parsons out) you if you’re not going to slow anyone down on D.

 

What were they saying? why would they bash harden for wishing his best friend since grade 6

 

I miss the Kevin Martin/Samuel Dalembert days. Those guys were real winners.

 

It isn't going to accomplish much. All clutchfans' members do now is complain. Wah, wah, wah, we have two stars on our team, a deep bench, and all of our draft picks. Wah, wah, wah, our two best players are locked up for the next 4-5 years. It's like those meme's of first world problems. Harden will get better. Fortunately for Houston fans, he is NOT selfish and wants to win a championship. He has shown signs of fixing the small things he needs to (defense, passing the ball quicker, learning when to play "hero" ball). Last night he played good D in the 4th. He has been moving the ball around more the last two games.

He is 24. He has some things that are elite that no matter how hard 98% of the league tries to do, they will not be able to do in an actual game. That is something we should be happy for. I am not saying to let the players off, but considering where we are this early in the season and where we are heading, the ratio of praise to "reproach" should be 10:1, not the other way around.