Do you realize that Matthews had a bad series? <Table BORDER=1><TR><TD></TD><TD>PTS</TD><TD>FG%</TD><TD>3FG%</TD><TD>REB</TD><TD>TO</TD><TD>AST</TD></TR><TR><TD>Regular Season</TD><TD>16.4</TD><TD>44.1%</TD><TD>39.4%</TD><TD>3.5</TD><TD>1.3</TD><TD>2.4</TD></TR><TR><TD>Playoffs vs HOU</TD><TD>15.3</TD><TD>41.3%</TD><TD>30.0%</TD><TD>2.7</TD><TD>2.3</TD><TD>1</TD></TR></TABLE> So, Matthews scoring, FG%, 3FG%,Reb and Assists were down and his turnovers were up but that's why you think that we lost? If we could have been that "bad" defensively against Aldridge and Lillard we would have won the series.
Comparing Kawhi to Harden is beyond idiotic. Kawhi is extremely overrated by some, just as Parsons. That is a fair comparison, Kawhi and Parsons. Both fan bases tend to overrate their role players, both are fringe All-Star talent but neither will ever be perennial All stars.
You don't defend just one guy. There are switches and help and rotations all the time. Being lazy or unaware on defense more than affects how well "your man" scores. Ultimately the defense is judged by how you impact the team's defensive abilities overall and Harden's been a negative on that end. Harden said it himself he needs to work in improving the defense. Zach Lowe mentioned Harden showing terrible defensive effort. Kelvin Sampson talking about Harden not trying on D. Are they all wrong because Matthews missed some 3s?
So you're continually saying that Harden plays no defense, one of the worst in the league, one way player, blah, blah, blah... yet in the playoffs Harden's man didn't even play up to his season averages in pts, fg%,3FG%, TO or reb? In the regular season Harden's man had a below average PER. Don't you find it strange that a player could play no defense and yet their opponent isn't even playing up to league average or their own averages? In the playoffs we got beat at the PF and PG position. Which of those are you blaming on Harden's defense?
Defense is not 5 1-on-1 matchups. Just because Aldridge scored it doesn't mean that the HOU PF is responsible. On on a 1-4 pick and roll, for example, the 2, 3 and 5 often still have help responsibilities and when one of them gets lazy, he may well be the source of the breakdown. On the other hand, just becaus "your man" didn't score doesn't mean that you are playing great defense. If your man didn't score because your team brought a double team, or because your center came to help at the rim when you let him by, it's not really to your credit. In fact, often a driving player misses a shot due to help defense, only to see his own C/PF getting the putback. On paper, it looked like the big guy allowed a dunk, but it really isn't his fault. These "opponent PER by position" used on 82games.com and similar numbers are of really suspect usefulness. The playoffs saw also both teams using a liberal doze of odd lineups and cross matches. Harden was in fact guarding Aldrige in some situations when HOU went small to try to improve the offensive spacing. Aldridge scored 2 or 3 straight baskets on Harden and the team switched out of the matchup. I don't really blame Harden for these since it was a mismatch physically and the team was just trying to exploit the matchups going the other way. In another notable possession Harden ended up on Batum, and allowed Batum to run free behind Harden for a layup because Harden was watching the ball and not paying attention to Batum. Those are the kind of stuff that he did over and over. Guys who watched and broke down a lot of game action and read a lot of stats, like Kelvin Sampson and Zach Lowe, have noted Harden's lack of defensive awareness and effort. I am pretty sure they considered arguments and info like those in your post and still came to the same conclusion.
You're talking around the point. You're mentioning specific isolated plays. You can do that with most any player but that doesn't define their overall defense. Here's a couple of articles citing defensive lapses by Lebron in the Indiana series. While they are all valid points you can't make the jump to Lebron plays no defense. At some point you have to look at the overall results. http://fansided.com/2014/05/23/lebrons-playing-bad-defense-eastern-conference-finals/#!Rptsa http://nbaobserver.wordpress.com/2014/05/19/pacers-take-1-0-lead/ Do you actually believe that you could play no defense at all and that your man won't perform better than normal over the course of 82 games and playoffs? Really? Harden was pretty much matched up with Matthews and Batum the vast majority of the time. Both were below their FG%, 3FG% for the series against the Rockets. Those guys weren't the reason that we lost. Have you seen Batum's numbers in the series? He wasn't the problem. Harden may have ended up switched to Aldridge for a play or two but by no means was he guarding Aldridge more than a handfull of times. Aldridge dropped 89 points on 59% shooting in the first two playoff games. That's the reason that we lost and Harden didn't have any more to do with Aldridge hitting jumper after jumper than Beverley or Lin did. Aldridge was catching the ball and shooting it before any double teams could arrive. So basically, in your mind, if Harden's man has a bad game then it's just luck and his teammates covering for him but if anyone on the other team has a good game then that's due to Harden's defense?
I agree that a few instances of defensive lapses is not conclusive proof of a person being a bad defender. Morey made the point with the "12 minutes video of Harden defensive lapses," too. It is only partial info as to how a player defends, something to consider, but not conclusive. It does mean that the guy played poor defense in those specific possessions in these specific games, though, and they do have an impact, a substantial one, if you add up enough of them. And yes, even Lebron can have a bad defensive possession, quarter or game-- the question is that whether they are representative of his overall level of play when comparing to larger-sample stats. The same goes with the "opposing SG stats." It's something to consider, but far from conclusive. If we are going position by position, are we going to conclude that Pat Beverley did a poor defensive job? Deciding how good a defender a player played require a deeper level of analysis than either a sampling of several glaring possessions or an opposing SG stat: need to look at each defensive possession, know each person's coverage responsibilities on the play, and see who fulfill his duty and who screwed up. After you do this with each possession, you can calculate the % of possessions a player broke down, fulfilled his duties, and/or made an exceptional defensive play. And then you can compare this player to his teammates and to the overall NBA population (the latter is a tough job for even a well-staffed team to do not only because the sheer amount of data but also because a team's staff may not know another team's defensive play call in each possession and what each player's duty is) and form some conclusion as to how good a player's defense is. These numbers, however, are not publicly available. Morey likely has a database for them, but he's not about to share it. In the absence of this, the next best thing would be some sort of adjusted plus minus type numbers (RAPM, xRAPM, etc.) that attempt to reflect a player's impact on his team's defensive rating. And by xRAPM (or ESPN's "Real Plus Minus"), for example, Harden is a very poor defender overall this year. Given the sampling nature of these stats, though, there is always a range of error to work with, and this range of error tends to be huge when you are only talk about a 6 game sample size, which renders the numbers not very helpful. So, neither the "opposing SG stats" approach nor pointing out several defensive breakdowns (even ridiculous looking ones) is conclusive as to how well a player defends. The kind of statistics that would be somewhat conclusive are either unavailable to the public, or "noisy" in a small sample. What we do know, though, is that Zach Lowe, Kelvin Sampson, Bob Voulgaris (see here: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=253022) and (if you believe cyberx) Kevin Love, among others, have spoken publicly or in private about Harden's poor defensive effort, whether as an overall matter or specifically in the playoffs. Zach Lowe specifically said Harden played "dog crap defense" vs. Portland in a recent podcast. Those guys, other than perhaps Kelvin Sampson before his departure, may not have access to all the relevant data and evidence, but they do look at a lot of film, talk to a lot of NBA people and/or read a lot of scouting reports. You might argue that I am biased against Harden or that certain fans here are. But the number of people, especially those who watch and analyze NBA closely, who share similar opinions, should not be ignored.
Just give it up. People don't like the "watch the tape". I agree with the bolded parts, though. Not strange at all. Actually, basketball is considered a team sport. One game, when going over the film, I got absolutely grilled by my coach for the worst defensive performance of the season for me, yet my matchup scored 0 points. Why? He missed open shots, and I missed rotations. Quite frankly, there really is not an individual defensive stat out there that accurately portrays defence. Team defence can be measured, but individually, have to go through the tape.
Yes and No. I agree the NET PER can't determine if you are a good defender but it can show that you aren't getting torched on a regular basis. As far as Beveley, his NET PER shows that on average he's at a disadvantage vs his competion. I don't think too many people would disagree with that either. He gives tons of effort but the fact is that we lose the PG matchup most nights. We've been over the ESPN Real Plus Minus in another thread. I know it seems to prove your theory so you latch on to it, but that rating system is a joke. They just moved Lebron up 55 spots in their overall defensive rankings and he's still only #189 in their rankings. A rating system that says that Lebron is the 34th best defensive SF can't be taken seriously. Just because something gets said doesn't make it true. Zach Lowe just reported that the Rockets were interested in bringing Scola back even though it's not allowed by the CBA. Does that make it true? What exactly did Sampson say? "James is a 4th quarter defender. There is no perfect player. LeBron is the greatest player on the planet and has defensive lapses, especially this year but when it's nut-cuttin' time and time to win the game, LeBron guards and so does James." One of my pet peeves is the common misconceptions that get repeated over and over again and sited as fact when they really have no basis. We've already done threads to refute the "Harden isn't clutch" and "all we do is ISO". After the playoffs ended how many posts mentioned that we lost because we ISO'd too much or that Harden let Matthews go off? How often do we get posts about Harden being a ball hog or a volume shooter? Remember all of the claims that Lebron was a choker and that a team couldn't win with him as their #1 player? I'm dating myself here but I can still remember when people use to claim that Kareem didn't care on the floor because he showed very little emotion (sound familiar?). Lots of stuff that is completely untrue gets repeated but that doesn't make it true.
Sure that could happen occassionally but not for 82 games + playoffs. Over that many games things are going to even out. You'll have games where guys are open and just miss but later you'll have games where a guy is well defended and keeps hitting shots anyways.
You don't criticize a player for defending well but getting scored on, yet giving up open shots is still bad, even if missing. Things don't even out: poor rotations did not change overnight, and lazy on-ball defence was a problem all year, playoffs and regular season. Harden should thank his lucky stars he has played meaningful minutes with elite rim protectors his whole career.
Guess we will just not agree on whether Harden is a ****ty defender. That's OK. As for Zach Lowe-- To clarify, he did NOT say that the Rockets are trying to bring him back right away or even at all. All he wrote was that McHale asked Morey about the prospect of bringing Scola back. He didn't say that Morey agrees with McHale. McHale may also be talking about the future rather than right away. He has publicly praised Scola's professionalism several times so he clearly likes Scola as a veteran leader type. The report says nothing about HOU asked IND about a trade or anything close to it.
Marcus morris and kawhi leonard on same team smh in a twist of fate. We had the chance to draft him but instead drafted marcus morris
