You guys seem to forget that even Lebron was terrible in the playoffs his first few years. He had his moments, but he had some very similar games to James where he stunk the joint up. I'm not worried - Harden will learn.
Totally agreed. If Harden hits that shot at the end of game 2 in golden state and who knows what happens. Time to look forward to the Big 3 era of Harden, Howard and Lawson. Fingers crossed this will be the big 3 type to create team synergy since Harden and Lawson are both elite passers.
And the stats were available right afterwards as well. What changed? People's memory. What they remember of the context of the stats. And his game play outside the stats. Like the issues I stated above.
The Finals series was just a kid being asked to do too much too soon against one of the league's more unique defenses. The Portland series was just a defender well suited to guard Harden plus the team facing a tough choice between destroying their spacing with Asik or getting shredded defensively with Jones. Ideally your MVP doesn't have series like that, but this was just his second year as a featured player and I doubt it will ever happen again to that extent. As far as this year goes, he was extremely good and just happened to cap it off with an all-time stinker of a game. Bad games happen to everyone and he'll move past it. I trust Harden in the playoffs.
The way certain folks reference the 2012 Finals with James is the most revisionist-history narrative I've seen in a while. As far as I can tell, it was started by bitter OKC fans who wanted to justify the trade of Harden a few months later and were eager for someone to blame for their disappointing loss. It always baffles me when anyone credible falls for it. First of all, we're talking about one 5-game series, which is tiny in the grand scheme, and a series in which Harden's usage (i.e. sample size) was clearly limited by his "third wheel" role on that OKC team. In Game 1, the Thunder won by double digits and Harden had a whopping 6 shot attempts. Not a lot to take in any direction. In Game 2, Harden was 7-for-11 with 21 points and a plus/minus of +13 -- the highest of anyone on the entire Oklahoma City roster. In Game 5, he scored 19 points (5-of-11 FG) to go with 5 assists and 4 rebounds in 35 minutes. When folks reference Harden "choking" in that series, it essentially comes down to two games -- Game 3 and Game 4 in Miami. Two 2-of-10 performances as the third option for 8 and 9 points, respectively. Sure, he could've been better... but the way some laser in on two subpar games for a third option off the bench as some career referendum is just the stuff of bitter OKC fanboys. P.S. In the context of "Playoff Harden", it's also amusing how those OKC fans never point out how Harden repeatedly rescued them in the clutch in the prior series against San Antonio, a team that on paper was even better than Miami at the time.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/08/s...f-dancer-touch-of-surgeon-and-a-shot-too.html May as well put this random article from 1994 here about Hakeem.
Lebron in the Finals had 8 points vs the Mavs. I'm not worried about Harden. He had 1 terrible game for all of the great games he had in the playoffs
