I just checked the play-by-play of that game, and Harden seemed to have poured in a lot of buckets when Ariza and Howard both were resting briefly. We were mostly trailing by more than 10 points when those 3 were on the court together, but in the brief moment when Harden was playing with the 2nd unit, he really took off. thus the discrepancy.
I don't blame him for thinking it has to be him in the final moments of a close game, but he did start to ignore his teammates a bit earlier than necessary I thought, and I noticed the example of when you're referring to Ariza's displeasure. It's a team wide problem... when things get tight, the team gets tighter, and the only one that seems to have the composure to overcome it seems to be Harden, though Dwight is looking better hitting some late free throws I would say and that could make a bigger impact that it would seem at first glance if we could keep the ball in his hands late. The problem is, Harden feels it too early and puts more pressure on himself by not trusting his teammates before it is mission critical.
Something fishy going on. It ain't fish sauce, more like duck sauce. 2 peas in a pod against the world.
dismissing +/- stat without understanding in full context what it means is foolish. it can be a very useful tool even for a single game to gauge a superstar's performance given that he plays large enough amount of minutes and doesn't get too much help from other teammates. I think +/- stat is less useful for teams like San Antonio or Atlanta, where there is stronger emphasis on the team play, thus making it more difficult to measure a single player's impact on a game. but in a team like Houston, where the go-to-guy carries the most of the workload most of the time, the main guy's +/- usually correlates nicely with the team's overall performance, so it's not a worthless stat when it comes to Harden at all. if Harden plays 48 minutes, then his +/- will be exactly the same as the point differential between our team and whoever we play against. that means even if he plays around 40 minutes or so, we can pretty much accurately come up with an estimation as to how he fared in that particular game. if his D was awful and gave up a lot of points, then unless he or other teammates had an amazing shooting night to make up for that deficiency, his +/- can't possibly be positive. i agree that it shouldn't be used for role players, but for a guy like Harden or Westbrook, +/- stat could tell us a lot.
hehe, i just love the way some were insisting/stressing defense is all teamwork. what about offense? it's more of an individual thing, eh?
With Harden playing almost 40mpg, how often do these guys get to have experience making decisions, practicing plays (if they have any) without Harden on the court dicatating the flow of the offense. Why not what see Lawson/Dwight for long stretches while limiting Harden's minutes some nights. They're basically just asking him to break down every year once the playoffs start.
Yeah, it certainly can be. Heard of Kobe, Allen Iverson? This is not saying that it has to be that way but a guy can certainly carry his team offensively mostly by himself. Even if we were to trade for say Kawhi we still would not be a good defensive team. Hell, we have a multiple time DPOY on our team, Ariza, and Beverly...and we still aren't a good defensive team.
offensively "carry" a team? what's ai's or kobe's scoring avg.? 50, 60, or what? can any team win a game by scoring a total of 50pts? "carry a team", is just a media slang, my friend. while hero ball can win games at times, team ball trumps hero ball - always.
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You act like because it's "slang" it doesn't have a definition or it's not real. The definition of "slang" is not something that doesn't bare truth. It's usually just a shortened word or phrase that takes the place of a longer definition. Some of you guys have to let go of your silly notions or you're going to be in this thread trying to somehow prove that James Harden isn't the reason we win games. Good luck with that.
I wouldn't call it "confused". Anyway "This was the third time in his career that Harden has scored 50 points. He is now the first Rockets player in franchise history to score 50 points three times." http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on...en-scores-50-points-leads-rockets-past-sixers
Tell that to Atlanta come playoff time in the 4th quarter of a close game. "Hero Ball" has a place on good teams. Don't use some "false dichotomy" to make it sound like teams are one or the other. End game ISOs in the playoffs have a place. Most all Finals teams rely upon them in the playoffs, 2014 Spurs being a notable exception, but they were blowing out everyone.
The fact that you are only comparing Harden to other superstars and not his teammates actually proves my point. You can't even fathom having two guys hat play just like Corey Brewer his currently playing on our team. Again without changing the subject I would take two guys who play exactly like Harden on our team any day of the week over any other player we currently have.
that's not why i am here in this thread for. james harden was one of the reasons we won last night. among others, i also can argue that dwight's "clutch" free throws won us the game. btw, harden shot below team average last night. but but but,,, james had 50! if he didnt, we'd have lost... yeah, and brewer had 7. if he had only 4, we'd have lost it too. hehe.
No he really did want those 50. there was a 3 on 1 fastbreak near the end and he forced it but got the foul call luckily.
i was talking about the main style of play of a team. and you changed it to "end game ISOs". ofc they "have a place". it can win and has won games. never dismissed that. so dont put words in my mouth.
So there's someone on IG that apparently hangs out with Brewer (pictures prove it) and he had a post, when Mc Hale was fired, that said it was obvious Harden was the problem. He also wrote he hopes they find a coach Harden will actually listen to... Although that definitely could just be his own opinion, I'd be surprised if he didn't talk about the team with Brewer, so..
