Harden says he plays too much to maintain defensive focus

That was just a mental lapse. He thought he was going to make an easy lay-up and was already stepping out to get the in-bound pass from Capela.

 

I think they need to change James Harden to the point guard position. He has the ball more than the point guards, maybe he will play better at point guard and be a better fit for the team as the starting point guard.

 

Yeah, Harden should play better defense, but the team shouldn't play him so much minutes per game. I agree him

 

Which one?

 

Actually that's a defensive scheme that GSW has set up to limit Curry's deficiencies on the defensive end

McHale was incapable of setting up any such scheme and JB well I don't know.

That apart at least Curry tries defensively despite his limitations physically. Harden has all the physical tools to be at least an average NBA defender but chooses not to try.

 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Harden comes in "out of shape" according to everyone here, yet plays by far the most minutes in the league. Obviously he is going to be tired. It doesn't excuse most of the bad D, but it is obvious that he shouldn't have to be playing over 40 mins a night. It's a complete cluster **** right now. Something has to give.

I do think it is showing in his overall play. His 4th quarter shooting %'s have been as bad as I can remember them being in a Rockets uniform.

 

can you imagine hakeem saying i'm not going to do ramadan this year, i have to play basketbol and dominait.

 

does he have a pr team? this, as ridiculous as it sounds, is so bad even for his personal image, imo. what a stupid quote.

its one thing for his fans or even the media to say he's playing too many minutes. its another for himself to publicly say it, under the current circumstance.

so what's next?
"last night i banged khloe for too long so i didnt have too much energy left in tonight's game. after all, she does have a big bottom, you know..."??

 

Lack of playmakers mixed with Lawson not fitting in yet. I like bev but and ariza but it's easy to hide one or two guys that are offensively challenged but when you have 3-4 on the court at once it gets icky.

 

I think most creators of highlight reels use the full game tapes. If you have something like League Pass you can replay every game, pause, etc, which makes it easy.

 

40 minutes a night.... almost 4 more minutes than everyone else in the league is too much, especially someone that plays such a huge part when he is on the floor.

That doesn't defend or justify his defensive effort, but he should get less minutes. The problem is that the rest of the team isn't very good.

 

He's not wrong. He can't and shouldn't be relied upon to carry the team for 40 minutes a game.

However...you can't be a defensive joke, regardless of how many minutes you play. Last year was just fine. Not a lockdown defender by any means, but competent and capable. If he plays defense like he did last year, nobody would complain at all.

 

I think this is a really bad "smoking gun" example (especially since there are so many to choose from). Capela doesn't even try to contest b/c Ilyasova is at the rim... They were both surprised by the missed layup. James stopped up because he thought the play was over. It wasn't. The ball rolled out on the other side and Baynes was already there to put it back in. Almost every player slows down at the end of a fast break that is going to end in a basically open layup. Not saying he doesn't quit on plays... but I'm not so sure he's the only one. He just happens to be the one that everyone is watching specifically for. If anyone else does that you don't even hear about it. I get an ESPN notification every time James blows a defensive assignment. Its a little ridiculous.

 

He's obviously very tired 4min into the game in the first quarter.

 

Maybe if he played defense for the first three quarters, we would be blowing out these bad teams so that he could take off the fourth quarter.

 

EXACTLY. There are so many plays that get vined where Harden either just lost his man (mental lapse) or intentionally quit on a play that he didn't figure he could affect. I truly believe you could throw together a montage from nearly every player in the league of blown defensive assignments and plays where they stopped up before the play was over.