The low efficiency compares to the criticism of Melo and why he hasn't had a lot of playoff success. Fewer shots, better efficiency and balanced team scoring would better serve the Rox than Harden's hero ball.
Is 35 shots the most Harden has taken all year? I wonder why he chose to take that many shots; or was it the coaches decision? The Rox looked good in game 3 overall, but for one player to take 35 shots is kind of unhealthy for the offense.
I'm sorry bit WTF is going on here? Last game he was attacking the rim too but hardly got any calls. It's like the Refs have just all decided that they weren't going to reward guys who are as aggressive as Harden can be at attacking the rim suddenly and instead will reward guys who take fade away mid range jumpers all game long.
35 is the most in his career. His next two highest? 28 vs. you guessed it...Portland. (Both this year: 4/20 and 3/9)
He goes for the shots but the refs aren't calling it...so he misses the shot. When a player is fouled it's a lot harder for that player to make the shot... I don't get why people say this because he drives and slashes a lot...so he tends to get fouled a lot. He also gets a lot of And 1s, so he tries to finish the shot. The problem is when a guy is fouling him it's harder to make the shot he's attempting. So when they do not call the fouls his FG% is just going to decrease, that's just how it's going to be. The reason he's usually so efficient is because he gets tot he line a lot, the reason he gets to the line a lot is because he attacks the paint a lot. Usually for Harden if he isn't shooting a three he's driving in for a lay up.
chandler, Pb&J are all shooting at 41% from the field. Dwight and asik, over 50% Harden at 33% with 1.7 more t.os than the 'turnover machine' on 1 billion(82) FGAs. That's borderline Rudy Gay. For a franchise player that's kind of shaky. Look at it this way, those bringing lin to the conversation.. toni kukoc's, who was regarded as one the best 6th mans in the 90s, playoff stats are right on par with Lin's only lin shoots less, rebounds better and assists better. Point being, your franchise player has to take it to the next level, in order to even win a series. everyone else is just playing a team role, making plays when plays are needed bev and lin have done that, lin in O.T in game 1 and game 3. Howard, on the other end, is beasting like playoff yao version 2006-2007. I say yao and not dream because Howard has issues on that PnR like Mehmet punished yao for not coming out to defend. I've been super impressed with dwight all year and especially now.
He goes into the lane crashing into people instead of just shooting. Refs are in "playoff" mode so it doesn't get called.
He's still young, and the sample size before coming to Houston was in fewer minutes as a bench player. We'll see how he develops over the next couple years
I wouldn't go so far as to say 'bad' but it's pretty clear (thus far) that his game doesn't translate as well to the playoffs as some other stars/superstars. Maybe just a learning curve but I think it's partially his style of play which relies on getting some calls.
This team needs a 3rd star. Harden/Dwight ain't going to be championship material, unless Parsons becomes a different player.
But up until this postseason he has been getting to the line at, near or above the rate he was during that season. This year is such an outlier in terms of his free throw rate it's crazy. Less than half of any of his prior postseasons.
Why single out Lin, No one was talking about Lin and anyways Lin has a thread or should I say more threads than any rocket player ever.
So any chance he starts getting to the line in this series?... if the Rockets just got a little more out of him they would be in control of the series.
The refs have swallowed the whistle when the Rockets are on offense for most of this series. The only time they were consistently getting to the line was in the 2nd half of Game 1 and that was clearly intentional to close that 17-0 free throw disparity from the 1st half. That being said, Harden needs to just fight through it. Keep attacking. If the Rockets wind up losing the series because the refs handed it to the Blazers with one-sided officiating, we can address that after it's over. But the worst thing Harden can do is take himself out of the game mentally like he did in Games 1 and 2 by just quitting out there because he gets frustrated. BTW, one other thing that might help is if McHale was willing to get a tech once in a while for standing up for his players. Whether we like it or not, refs do respond to that.
Yes. Harden is the no-defense player highly dependent on refs offensively, which spells failure for post season.
You have the defense right, but if Harden is ref dependent then so is Durant, Lebron, Melo, Griffin, Love, Derozan.....
