Since everyone is so outraged that we didn't get the ball in to Dwight in the 2nd half then I guess that the obvious question is "Why didn't Lin throw the ball in to Dwight either?". Is Lin not a team player and just looking to pad his stats too? Or is it possible that Sacramento made adjustments at half time to take Dwight away? Dwight killed them inside in the 1st half and nobody but Harden could hit a 3. So what did Sacramento do? They sagged off of our outside shooters and surrounded Dwight in the paint to prevent the ball from going in to him. It turned out to be a solid strategy as Dwight only got 1 shot attempt in the 2nd half and everyone else except for Harden ended up 2-17 from the 3 point line.
Really? What other insights can you give us from all of your time in the Rockets locker room with the team?
All the stuff you're naming is related to errors, or shooting. Those happen during a game. Those can be fixed in between games. Whether that's brain freeze or coaching, those aren't immediately fixable mid-game. What IS fixable is Harden putting some EFFORT on the floor. If Rudy Gay goes off despite being contested, that's going to happen. As long as Parsons is sticking his hand in his face and TRYING to slow him down, I can live with that. That's all part of the growing pains of a team. You're trying to conflate errors in game play by the team, or random events like a shot going in and a guy NOT EVEN TRYING. There is a HUGE difference. No defensive scheme on the planet will work if one guy REFUSES to make the effort to execute it. No offensive scheme on the planet will work if one guy REFUSES to make the effort to execute it. Did it even occur to you that part of why we had team defensive break downs is because the rest of the guys are trying to COVER for Harden's total lack of effort? That *MAYBE* Dwight's crappy rebounding was a result of him being forced to come out and stop the guy that Harden was on? That *MAYBE* we're getting torched on the pass because our guys are being forced to Rotate multiple times because Harden completely lost track of his man? You can try to stick this on the Bench, but the Bench is who they are. A bunch of minimum/near minimum players. They do their best but Casspi and Garcia aren't even average starting quality players. Harden is an All Star starter. He KNOWS better. You can blame Brooks for getting torched but the guy is weak on defense and always has been. The difference is Brooks TRIES to defend. The biggest problem with Harden right now isn't that he's crappy on defense, it's that half the time he doesn't even TRY to defend. He doesn't even put 50% of what he can do defensively on the floor some nights. And last night was one of them. If everyone on the team TRIES to do their job, then guess what... it becomes darn clear what the team needs to do to fix it. They either coach up the errors, or they replace the talent. However, when Harden half-asses it he makes *EVERYONE* look bad. All the deflection in the world doesn't change that a good part of the reason we lost is that the entire team played hard on Defense in the 1st half EXCEPT James Harden. And you're going to call out the team for being torched when they're playing 4 on 5 defense? Seriously? Have Harden put in even 80% on the defensive end and then *maybe* you can start talking about the guys who got torched in SPITE of playing their butts off. As for Miami, SAS and OKC, you must NOT watch those teams because those teams are LOT more selective about when they go ISO than James Harden.
Yes you're right I haven't seen the Heat much since they almost never get on National TV. Who do you think ends up taking the shots in clutch times for Miami? It's usually Lebron and if it's not him it's Wade or Bosh. That's how it usually works that All-NBA guys tend to take the shots in clutch moments, not the role players. Which Heat role players are you thinking are hitting shots in clutch situations? Under the same criteria that we've been discussing (5 point differential in last 3 minutes), Chalmers is 1-3, Coles hasn't taken a shot, Battier is 0-1 and Beasley hasn't taken a shot. So that Beasley shot that you remember either didn't come during a clutch situation or it wasn't Beasley who hit the shot. Under today's rules teams put the ball in their best perimeter players hands and they tend to take the last shot.
Harden is still great player on offense, the thing is he just doesn't even try on D, I ble that in his 6th man mentality from OKC "I'm in the game to score only" and Mchale not holding him accountable. So of course harden is not going back to bench as a 6th man, so the only way to change it is 1. Lowering his mins 2. Bring in a new coach that will hold him accountable to play D & move on offense when he doesn't have the ball.
I plainly stated that's it's NOT like he has to work his stat line for future negotiations... ie he doesn't have to work his stat line for future earnings... and as for 'all the other players'... they're not runnin isos, jacking up 26 shots and looking like they have no energy for the defensive end of the court... but u feel free to keep arguing with everybody else... obviously u are far more knowledgeable than the rest of the board... smh...
We had a lead of 8 late in the game, correct? How was Harden's defense the 2nd half? How many did Thorton or McLemore score in the 2nd half? Were either of those guys a problem in the 2nd half? If Harden was the only problem then we should have won going away. How about Thomas getting into the lane any time he wanted to? The bigs cut him off in the first half (I guess we were playing 3-5 at that point, huh?) but the 2nd half he got whatever he wanted. Was that lack of effort or bad team defense? Gay hit some tough shots in the first half but he also got some wide open looks too. You're trying to tell me that Jeremy Lin doesn't have the ability to play the pick and roll better than what he did last night? They run the same play that many times and nobody can make an adjustment? Dwight didn't have the ability to battle Cousins for rebounds? There's plenty of blame to go around. Interesting that you choose to place all of the blame on the guy that kept us in the game all night.
LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Allen, Anderson, Battier if he's open and in the game. It was definitely a clutch situation and LeBron passed him the ball. And yes it was Beasley that hit that shot and LeBron passed it to him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ckQZsq0hg Around 3:00 minute mark. That was a late assist in a tight game to Beasley. And yes, LeBron took his shots and ISO'd in these highlights but the team movement and ball movement was balanced with the ISO and several times LeBron dished the ball to a team mate. More of the team gets touches on the Heat and you could see them all ready if LeBron chose to pass to them Beasley was ready to knock that shot down.
bunch of sooks on here, offence isn't the problem, it's defence and you were not complaining about Harden last season when he was winning the Rockets games in the 4th quarter
I'll ask again, what did the rest of the players do last night? They did shoot 2-17 from the 3 point line, they didn't get the ball in to Dwight, they didn't rebound and they didn't defend well. Were you complaining when Harden was going off and got us back into the game and took an 8 point lead? Exactly who did you want shooting the ball down the stretch? Did you want us to throw it in to Howard in a close game? Parsons? Lin? Garcia? Let's hear who you think should be taking the shot? I'm going to guess that you're reply will be "hit the open man". Well, the open man would have likely have been Jones at the 3 point line and I'd take my chances with Harden over him any day. Really I want to know. If it comes down to one shot and you can pick the player to take the shot, who do you choose? Can you answer that for me? I find it funny that people tend to blame all of our defensive problems on Harden, yet when Harden isn't playing we allow James Anderson to go off for 36 and Tony Wroten to get a triple double. Think that maybe we aren't playing good team defense?
the Rockets want to play a three point shooting game style but they don't have a three point sniper, if they had Kyle Korver type then fine the game style would be great but they don't have that kind of player.
What's the point of bringing up James Anderson? He's 5 inches taller than Lin, was unconscious that night and didn't Lin score 31 or was it 34 that game? They practically cancelled each other out. That was just a shoot-out OT game and much earlier in the season. Who do you want to take the last shot? It depends. If Parsons was shooting well, Parsons. Lin can definitely hit big shots too. As I showed with the LeBron tape, the ball can go through your big player but it is ridiculous to say that Harden is the only one that can sink a big basket. Harden was a hero in this game until he ignored his teammates and forced the issue. Make the passes, look at that Miami highlights. Even when LeBron held the ball passes were made before LeBron held the ball and then the veteran made good basketball plays whether taking a one-on-one shot or passing when more defenders came towards him. Harden's stopping the ball is a problem and then jacking up contested shots while his team mates are not involved is bad basketball. His TOs came from overhandling the ball and playing hero. He made bad late-game choices in a game where he should have been player of the game.
at this point, I don't know if you're jus trolling or if u believe what yer putting out there... You point out the poor 3 pt shooting last night - yet Lin shot 70% total, Jones 60% total and D12 and Parsons were 1 more made shot from being 50% (same as for Harden)... so I'm fine with any of those guys taking shots down the stretch - preferably a high % shot brought about by proper ball movement... as opposed to the black hole of a Harden iso... As for the overall poor defensive showing... if 1 man constantly loses his assignment and everybody is scrambling to fill the void - that's when you give up easy buckets... And as for why the blame falls on Harden... if he wants to be the primary ball handler and wants to play the superstar role (with more than double the shots as anybody else on the team) - then u gotta lead by example - on BOTH ends of the court...
The end of last nights game reminded me of the playoffs last year with OKC when Harden had turnover after turnover during the late stretches of the game. He's young, I get that part, but he has to get better. Having said that we have to work on some better plays then just some ISO crap that every team knows we are running.
This is exactly what cost us the darn game. And some don't see that, they are definitely blind. It's not how you start, or the in between but how you end. Six straight bad possession at the end of the game all by one player. Each play was ISO Harden, heroball. bwhahahaha come on man call a spade a spade around here. Harden cost us that game period.
