This picture does appear to support Harden's claim he was being held. Odd, the NBA targets handchecking more vigorously than this blatant hold... which as Smart emphasized, was right in front of the ref (Brothers).
Tony Brothers ABSOLUTELY made the CORRECT calls last night. Skip: The first thing I want to say is this game only needed was one ref: Tony Brothers. I'm gonna give him a sitting ovation right now. He did something I thought no ref would ever do. He knows a thing or two. He had the conviction to say BOOM! Offensive foul on Harden, who gets more calls in this league than a 1-800 number. He does. He was getting them all night. He was 15-15 in this game. He leads the NBA in FTA by 54 FTs. For him to have two quick calls against him in crunch time & Tony Brothers, to his credit, right on top of the play, he did not hesitate. BOOM! He threw his body into it. You fouled him. Harden got called twice.
Harden should of just elbowed smarts right in the face, That's an offensive foul that I can live with. Too many no calls but this game should of not come down to the wire. A qtr full of ISO's and no ball movement killed us. I'd rather had Bobby buckets on the floor than Weber As he was hesitant to shoot. 1st half was MDA style 2nd half looked like a mcfail game plan.
Harden has Kobe's taent, but not the balls Kobe did to challenge the elites. Yea those mfers hit Kobe with a rape case that damaged his earning potential and cost him mvps, but he is still a legend. Harden wants his cake and eat it too. Brotha you have to make more sacrifices Jameis Winston could easily be the best qb in the NFL( no kidding) if he sold out
Harden has many skillsets that are equal to Kobe and some even better but there are natural talents that Kobe had that Harden just doesn't have. I've heard that Harden has had asthma. If you watched Kobe play you would know how excellently conditioned he was. It's that supreme conditioning that allows players to 'play with balls' down the stretch. When Harden crumples down the stretch when teams start to press him, you notice all the signs of a fatigued winded man. He fails his arms and moves his feet less and uses his arms to push off and create separation.
The Rockets have no one to blame but themselves, they thought the game was over at halftime and play lackadaisical down the stretch. This is the primary reason CP3 is crucial to our success, he can increase or maintain the lead while James is one the bench. In addition, he can take the ball out of James hands down the stretch to make crucial plays. James sometimes struggles in that area.
Harden has asthma yes that is true, but the effect it has on his game is overblown. He played the most minutes from 2013-2017 in the NBA PERIOD. Harden is a workhorse. He shutsdown in games, because he doesnt wanna upset the applecard. Westbrook is more like Kobe, not in terms of talent but in terms of aggressiveness and doing now, and thinking about consequences later. All Harden had to do last night to not embarrass himself, i cant say for certain but this is what i think. Last night againist the celtics was the 33rd game of the year( once again 33 being the magic number and playing in boston the team has arguable the best 33 athlete in league history). It was also potentially the 33rd game where Harden could have scored 20 in a row. If Harden was smart he would have went out the 2nd half, with his 17 points, and the rockets would have already had a big enough lead to win the game. But Harden cares about his stats, thinking that will get him an MVP. Jose Altuve had to lose a 100 games for like 3 years to get where he was this year. The texans had to go through like 20 qbs before they got deshaun watson( who btw also has 33 gemetria, same as tom brady).... so what makes Harden think that he can just continue to play not sacrifice anything and be given ****. Westbrook faked that knee injury with beverley( westbrook was told to sit out the remainder of the playoffs) and he was rewarded with an MVP 4 years later, Durant had a fake foot injury( forced to sit out)... so both westbrook and durant have made huge sacrifices( and have been rewarded), James Harden has NOT. and NO Game 6 was not enough