if this is what a bad game will look, then I’ll take that all day...mediocre 21 points, but 9 assists, and elite D Harden is legit very good on defense now...not average or slightly above, but very good people still want to hang on to the past...how many times are we gonna hear “believe it or not, Harden has improved on defense”...or “Harden is playing a little defense now”...like he isn’t straight locking dudes up and disrupting offensive sets with his great hands and excellent timing...he’s even taking charges
And his post D is elite. Huge difference when House is guarding Gallo than when Beard guarding Gallo.
people just don’t want to accept that Harden is now a very good defender What more does he have to do? post defense better than most bigs...hands on New Orleans CP3 levels...team defense and rotations on point...if this was Lebron and not Harden and his stigma, they’d be campaigning for him to make an All-Defense team
What we can't afford from him is a horrible shooting game with 8 or 9 turnovers. And even then, if Russ is back, who knows?
Had a bad shooting game but his floor general game was insane good. He had 9 assists and no turnovers. Yes no turnovers with Dort and Paul plus SGA hounding him all game. He was engaged as well on defense. In the fourth when the Thunder got it to 9 harden scored 7 straight points to put away as well. Delivered in the clutch
The Official NBA Bubble Trigger Warning and Advisory: "Please note that teams including your favorite team may not play as well as fans expect and hope for; therefore watching NBA games may contribute to your sense of unhappiness with life and add to your already soul-crushing levels of despair and ennui. Parental discretion is advised."
people will quickly accept that Luka is elite offensively , but God-forbid james harden can improve his game
zero turnovers 9-9 FTs 1 of 2 3's in the fourth and he only shot 16 times during the game he probably attacked the paint around 15 times if I have to take a guess LOFs and haters here focus on a negative and purposely ignore the positive big picture
No, he's dumb and stubborn and immature and can't seem to grow. All we can get out of him is like 30/10/6/2/1 with good defense in the playoffs. Maybe we can make some use of him as a role player? You think he can? We're only 2-0 now, I bet we'd be better than that if we listened to advice going away from smallball.
I agree wholeheartedly with @Mathloom here, eloquently put. Something non-Rockets-fan-Harden-haters would benefit to hear, but would probably just cover their ears screaming even if they did. ... But I just feel obligated to say that game 6 of round 2 in 2017... That was more than a bad game. I don't know what exactly it was. I don't know what happened. But I just cannot wrap my mind around that being nothing more than a deviation from the mean, or even just a major outlier. Something was up. And whatever it was, I hope to god it never happens again. And I believe it won't. (Especially in the Orlando bubble where bars and strippers are presumably harder to come by)
If you think Harden had a bad game tonight, then you either didn't actually watch the game or don't know basketball.
Hang on, am I understanding you properly? Are you calling 21 points on 16 shots, 9 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals, and 0 turnovers, all in a double-digit playoff win against a very good defensive team, not only a bad game, but "atrociously bad"? EDIT: Just realized this post was made before the end of the game, but still lol. His numbers weren't much worse at that point.
