PnR only worked well for one game. Portland has been stopping it because dummy harden stands in one place dribbling for 10 seconds instead of being aggressive and heading towards the rim
Game 3 he made a costly mistake but was bailed out by Lin and Daniels. Game 2 he literally looked like he gave up after making mistakes/missing shots and getting burned repeatedly on D. Oh, and his shooting and asst to TO rate has been atrocious. But he's off the hook.
Portlands robinson, williams, and wright have played better than most of rockets secondary players. Daniels and asik the exception
That was not costly. The Rockets weren't going to do anything with 3 seconds on the clock. And I will use your argument...WE WON THAT GAME. Lin's mistake cost us the series. Just admit it.
This is the PLAYOFFS, there's no "gassed", there's no "out of shape", there's no "refs not making calls". NO EXCUSES whether it be Harden, Lin, Bev or whomever...that's all regular season BS
I think Harden played well offensively last night. But defense was not a big surprise, he was like he paid some money to watch Blazers play.
Maybe you're right. Maybe he is a glorified sixth man, a quitter, lazy, etc. You might be right. So what now? Do you want a cookie? Will that change the fact that Lin screwed up more than anyone last night? Maybe Lin wouldn't be so nervous if McHale played him in the fourth more often. He didn't play him in the fourth for a good chunk of the season and chose to do so in the playoffs. He let Bev close games and suddenly he decided Lin should close games.
Dwight did so much, he scored, and got stop after stop just so we could hand it right back to them for three easy points. mo friggin williams
You're right. Lin won the game. HEE secured that rebound. It was Mo Williams' fault. That stupid Williams and his headband.
I was screaming when Lin started dribbling WTF ARE YOU DOING CALL A TIME OUT. And then I see the Blazers trying to trap him and I know it is inevitable because he doesn't see one coming from behind. 50/50 McHale and Lin. McHale is a dumb ass coach who NEVER KNOWS WHEN TO CALL A TIMEOUT. YOU DO NOT PRESS THEM WHEN THEY ARE TRAPPING YOU AGGRESSIVELY IN A GAME LIKE THIS.
To be fair, he does play defense some. He drew a charge. He got switched on to Lillard I think in OT and played it well. But he knows he has some limitations. Take the Batum fast break. While it clearly looked and was horrible... I think that is what he considers his best defensive approach there... trying to go for a steal. And absent a foul... it might have been. He should have fouled. But Batum or Lillard or anyone else, James isn't stopping that coming full speed at him. He's just not. For all that he is/can be... James isn't actually that quick laterally. His offense relies on getting people off balance to get by them. He is not a blow-by type player. He's not fast enough. All that said, he CLEARLY needs to put in more effort, to try and stay a little more engaged and upbeat at times. But he also CLEARLY needs some defensive coach that understands his liabilities (and strengths) and teaches him to play better defense within that. On the Batum play in question for example, he shouldn't have been that far up mid-court anyway. He should have been retreating. I just don't think James knows that. On the Parson flagrant in overtime, it happened partially because Harden went for a steal. It was actually decent rotation, but not the best choice to gamble for the steal. He could have rotated out and then just tried to defend Aldridge... a tough matchup, but that might have at least given the defense the chance to reset a bit. The team as a whole gambles for steals too much. Later in the OT Parsons gambled for a steal as well that cost them. they have bad - HORRIBLE - defensive tendencies. The strange thing is you did actually see some possessions of solid rotations. But it only lasts a brief second. Take Lin. Who clearly is deserving of the current "scrub" status. But even on the play in question, how is it he is the guy involved in nearly every aspect of that play. He gets the original rebound, dribbles and loses it, is involved again with Pbev on the second rebound, and then is the guy who does the fly by on the 3 pointer. Where the heck was anybody else making any attempt to do anything? At least the other guards? Somewhat off topic there, but the point was, YES, Harden has some "quitter-like" tendencies... but he also just doesn't know any better. COACHING, COACHING, COACHING If you believe Scott Brooks is also in over his head, as I do, then you're effectively talking about a guy who has yet to be around that pedigree coach that is needed to help him get there.
There was a segment they showed for the Clippers/Warriors series, its two head coaches talking about head-to-heads when they were players. Doc mentioning, "Mark Jackson was one of the best passers ever. Great assists guy. Now, on the other end of the court..." Here, he smiles. "We had a play called 'Find Mark Jackson'." Reggie Miller was talking about this last night, at the same time I pointed it out to my wife: "Whoever James Harden is guarding, that's who the Blazers are running the play through." And it was true. Twice through Matthews, once through Batum.
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time to buy the "doesn't know how" to play defense excuse. We're not talking advanced basketball concepts here, we're talking Defense 101. Move your feet, keep your hands out to your sides, play off people who drive, body up jump shooters, raise your hands to contest, block out your man. This isn't stuff they only teach in the pro's, this is stuff they teach in peewee basketball. And Harden isn't a rookie, he's a 5th year NBA veteran. Do we really think that NONE of the teams he plays on has a coach to teach him defense? That not a single coach in High School or College could teach him defense? Now, if you're going to argue that Harden is dumb as a brick on defense ala Amare Stoudemire, IE he just isn't capable of learning defense due to lack of ball awareness, that's an entirely different argument. However, to argue that he's NEVER learned how to play defense? I just can't buy that for a NBA caliber player.
