all I know is that he was cold from the field and did not play well offensively...he might've been banged up, but a game like that can't happen again can't have Kawhi going for 34 while our superstar is dropping 13 I think we'll see a much better James Harden in game 3...he was starting to turn it on in the 3rd quarter, but the game got of hand in the 4th
The ankle was the more likely culprit. Before he rolled it the Spurs were trapping him with Leonard and LMA. After he rolled it they began having Leonard fight over the screen and LMA/Gasol sitting back in the paint.
Cold, flu, cough blah blah. It's the playoffs. Everyone has little niggles and stuff here and there. Just go out and play
As a big Harden supporter (someone who has posted that Harden is already the 2nd best Rocket ever), it gives me pause to say he was a liability yesterday. Harden is the indisputable leader of the team and players will follow his cue, namely if he plays with a fire in his belly, you will see aggressive play from our other players. For whatever reason, Harden was a no show yesterday. More worrisome, for a superstar of his caliber (IMO, only Lebron displays more talent), this lackadaisical play has been seen before. Harden is supremely talented, however, talent is not enough to prevail in the playoffs. A player must bring it every single game. There is no really cushion able losses or losses one can afford to take. Let's hope we will see the Harden that we know he can be in games 3 and 4.
No excuses. Harden not only looked bad, but like he was throwing the game for the Spurs. His movements were half speed and he wasn't even looking at his teammate before carelessly passing to them. Instead of laying the ball up, some of his layups had extra jerky movements that I can't understand. If you make mistakes while being aggressive then i understand, but he wasn't even attacking and STILL forcing the ball to players like Ariza up court. He's been playing on & off like this since his OKC days. I can't quite put me finger on why he has these careless games
Yeah, this isn't some sort of freakish occurrence that will likely never happen again (remember that one time Hakeem had a single digit scoring game?). Harden plays big more often than he gets credit for, but he still has these mental lapses in high pressure games and you could tell last night that he was checking out early. You know the team is in trouble when he does that thing in which he dribbles out most of the shot clock and then chucks a bad pass at the next guy over to see if they'll figure something out.
Of the true superstars in the league he might be the most inconsistent. He lets his shot dictate the rest of his game. if the shot is falling everything goes well for him, if his shot is off everything seems to be off.
What I saw was a lack of effort. I couldn't believe my eyes on some plays where he wouldn't even try fighting over a screen or staying in front of his man. Like another poster said, he was a liability, particularly on defense. If the injury was the root of it, I don't like our chances going forward. If he was just "out of it" for a game, we can bounce back.
Harden isn't really a great shot maker for a superstar, his percentages are usually not that impressive...too many games where he's barely shooting 40% from the field but manages to score a lot of points due to a large amount of free throws his 3 point shooting has regressed from above average to mediocre, he's taking too many contested threes off the dribble, he used to hit those at a decent rate 2 years ago, but the last 2 seasons they have not been going in...it seems like Harden is either going 1-9 from 3 or like 4-11, he's hardly ever going 5-9 or 6-10 etc
