The talk needs to go like this. "James, you're a great player. The best I've ever coached. One of the best players to ever play the game. We've got to build a true championship team around you and were still obviously a little bit short. One of the mistakes I made in Phoenix is I never got Steve Nash the help he needed for us to win a title. We had everything on that team except our interior defense was bad because we needed a great paint defender we didn't have and then when Steve went down with injury or I took him out of the game to rest him we didn't have another offensive initiator that could keep the offense flowing like he could. And In fact in crunch time in the playoffs our offense broke down sometimes even with him on court because we were playing great defenses that would deny Nash the ball because he was small or they would take away our shots and force Steve to have beat them by himself. As you know, we always came up short. We didn't have another creator to run offense when defenses keyed down on Nash. James, when you study championship teams, and I know you have, then you know they always have at least two and sometimes even three or four guys that can initiate and create offense. Right now, just like in Phoenix with Nash, we've got you and that's it. We've got to fix that and continue to develop our system with at least one more and preferably two more guys that can distort the defense by themselves because they are a threat to penetrate and finish or penetrate and create a great look for you and everybody else. That way when we get in crunch time against great defenses like the Spurs, Warriors, and Cavs, we'll be able to counter them when they key down on you. Just like they do to everybody else because they have multiple guys that can create a play." That's the talk. Because, James really doesn't have any offensive issues. None. He's arguably the greatest offensive player to ever play the game. What has happened is he is being asked to do too much and he has gladly taken on this role of being the sole playmaker and the primary scorer because he himself thinks he's great enough to drive the car all by hisself. James is a scoring guard that can create for others as a sidebar to scoring the ball. But he's not a true point guard. I'm sorry. He's not. He cannot make all the plays and passes that a true point guard has to make especially when there is a scramble. He's a great playmaker secondary to his scoring. But he's not a great playmaker primary to his scoring. And his playmaking is simply not enough to win a championship in this era. James needs help running the offense........period. Think about that. Has anybody else in the three point era ever won a championship being the sole playmaker and primary scorer? Nope. Kobe, MJ, Lebron? Nope. All of them were the primary scorer but not the sole playmaker when they won championships. Every one of them played with another guy that ran the offense, initiated, and created for others when they sat down, and also played alongside them and shared ball handling and distribution duties with them. James has done everything statistically he can do on the court. Next season it'll be time to eliminate his forced turnovers and forced pull-up jumpers that tear down our offensive efficiency when we go up against great defenses that know how to attach offenses. James has to accept another playmaker helping him and share playmaking duties with him.
He hasn't maximized his capabilities. He needs better conditioning and to drop some weight. Look at the dude when he first came to Houston. He was easily 10-15 lbs lighter and much quicker on his feet. His 3 pt shooting has also gotten worse since then. Let's face it. It's not like Harden is some gym fiend like Kobe. If he put in a lot more work into his game and conditioning, he can actually maximize his God given talents.
I don't know . . . they are the same mistakes he makes at other times, not necessarily mistakes that happen just in overtime in the playoffs with only 7 people playing. That's what made them so disappointing. Those mistakes down the stretch were sloppiness and carelessness mistakes.
If he was tired, again, that's on James. Every superstar in the nba usually follows the Micheal Jordan model of getting your teammate involved in the first half and conserving your energy for the 4th quarter. James did the opposite last night, he came out guns blazing and fizzled in the 3rd and 4th quarter.
So call a F-CKING timeout!!! Buy your star a few minutes of rest and draw up a decent play so we're not out there running McHale ISO-ball in a pivotal game that could very well decide the series. This is a serious issue I have with D'Antoni. He seems hellbent on not using timeouts even when it makes perfect sense to call one. Remember Game 4 vs OKC? That was another instance of Harden absolutely crapping the bed out there(supposedly because of a tweaked ankle). Did D'Antoni ever call a timeout in that 4th quarter to draw up a play instead of letting Harden constantly go one-on-one and jack up a long 3-pointer? Did he use a timeout late in the game to make sure the Rockets took care of the ball when they were up 4 or 5? No. He just stood there and watched as Harden nearly gave away the game with one bad possession after another(aside from that 18-footer over Oladipo). He did nothing as Harden inexplicably tried to feed Nene with the Rockets up 5 and less than half a minute to go instead of holding onto the ball and await an intentional foul from the Thunder. He seemed completely unprepared for the play where Adams missed the free throw and grabbed the rebound to set up Westbrook's 40-foot 3-pointer that made it a 1-point game. Harden was dogsh-t last night, no doubt about it. And he's had several awful games this postseason. But a lot of this is on D'Antoni. He trusted Dekker and Harrell in the regular season. Hell, he's trusted Dekker in this series. Yet he arbitrarily benched them last night and ran the rest of his players into the ground. He continues to hang onto every timeout as if there's some sort of nobility in finishing the game with 3 of them left over. And he refuses to reign in Harden when he's having one of his dreadful performances and run the offense through someone else(at least for a few plays here and there). If we lose this series, D'Antoni will have just as much to answer for as Harden.
Harden has made these mistakes before late in games. I don't see it as fatigue. I saw a guy going iso and with a few seconds left on the shot clock freeze... get stuck and make a bad decision.
That's where coaching comes in. You think Pop would tolerate Kawhi coming down a bunch of possessions in a row, running down the clock, and jacking up a bad 3-pointer(when he's not busy turning the ball over)? Hell no! He'd call a timeout after the first instance of that and chew out his entire team on the sideline. I know I wasn't the only one screaming at the TV when Harden kept wasting one possession after another late in regulation and throughout OT. So where was the Rockets head coach during all of this?
Playing off the ball sometimes might help in terms of not letting teams key on what we're doing. I know it's D'Antoni's big change was to make him handle the ball 100% of the time but when he's gassed and teams are stopping us why not mix it up sometimes. Let EG bring it up and set up Harden for an open 3
saying Harden turnovers are due to fatigue ignores the fact that he likes turning the ball over when he's fresh, when he's at optimal energy, when he tires, when he gets his 2nd wind and when he's tired again. turnovers are a problem for him and it's always been that way. anyway crunch time is role player time, a spurs player stepped up and none of ours did.
He is a turnover queen. He is a great regular season player but melts during playoffs. We've seen it every year for the past few years during the postseason
I think that's oversimplifying it. Gordon hit a big 3 late in regulation. Bev hit a big 3 in OT. Anderson hit a big 3 in OT. The problem was those plays were few and far between. Harden should've been setting up plays like that the entire 4th quarter and OT. Every time he did, something good happened. Instead he just dribbled out the clock and jacked up bad shots or waited too long to drive to the hoop and turned it over. That's horrible execution and clock management.
You should ask kevin mchale if it is possible to coach harden after he goes ISO.......blaming this on coaching or fatigue is nuts. It has been happening for years.
McHale wasn't a coach. He was a cheerleader, recruiter, and babysitter. D'Antoni has his faults, but he actually can coach. Why he was so passive last night is beyond me.
So Mchale didn't coach at all? Let's pretend he didn't.....(which is ridiculous) He still obviously tried to talk to Harden about these exact issues and it cost him his job! He benched Harden....In a playoff game!!! because he was not running good offense!!!
