Seriously? You jut called Harden a quitter ? lol. Please help me remove Aldriges' elbow out of his forehead then and tell him yourself !
Thought he played well offensively. Liked the play at the end of regulation when he set up Howard for the dunk. Didn't get a few calls. Defensively, he was pretty bad, but that's nothing new. He may be due for a break out game 5.
if i haven't said it already, this is what i see and it seems very clear to me. commentators also saw it and made mention during the game, not sure why there is any argument here at all.
Ok this is getting pointless fast. What the Rockets NEED is a real third option, minor star level at least. Point guard. No there is not one lurking on the bench at this time. Off season recruiting. IMO.
that doesn't mean that mchale or lin shouldn't be blamed for the loss last night. mchale should be fired, lin should not be in the nba. in fact, he should give back much of the $25mm contract money we wasted on his ass.
While it's a valid point, I don't think it factors in skill level here. All the things you talk about playing defense... guess what... I can do those things, too. But there's a problem... even if I did everything right, I'd get scorched. Because in the NBA, you sag off too much and you get burned from 3. You get too close, you get blown by. While this is generally true for almost every NBA player given the current rules, it is especially true for Harden, with his average at best lateral foot-speed. So I suspect he knows all the ways to play defense... but he clearly doesn't have the right coaching to tell him WHICH of those ways to play. How about this as a directive: "NO MORE GAMBLING FOR STEALS". The Rockets and Harden do this way too much. While I think Harden knows this is a risky move, in his head, he doesn't trust his or the team's halfcourt defense anyway. Defense is about philosophy. There's a reason why some coaches are much better offensively with the same players and some are much better defensively. And like you say, all of those players know "how" to play in the first place. The team has BAD defensive philosophy. This is obvious. But as I noted, dude has to put forth more effort. When he is engaged defensively, he has some success at times. Not always, but that is the nature of today's NBA... you get scored on, sometimes often, even when at your best defensively. But he should be trying a little harder no doubt.
If he was getting burned while at least trying to play fundamental defense, I honestly wouldn't be worked up over it. The NBA has some of the best athletes on the planet and you're going to get burned even if you're Tony Allen. That's still not an excuse to not play fundamental defense. That's like saying, "I can't stop that anyway, so I'll stop trying." Basic stuff like losing track of your man or not raising your hand to contest or having poor defensive posture isn't something related to knowing how to defend, it's not even TRYING to defend. Lin's not a good defender, however he TRIES to play defense so I can only fault him so much. He shuffles his feet, hustles on loose balls and tries to close to contend even when he bites on a pump fake. Harden gets caught WAY too many times not even trying, and that's always going to get more scrutiny in my books. He did it for a month during the regular season but now he can't do it in the play offs? Cruise mode during the regular season? Meh. Cruise mode in the play offs? It's never going to be acceptable, especially in a series defining game.
What surprised me more than anything was the Rockets were down three with 7 seconds to go in overtime and Harden did not move to try to get the in bounds pass, instead Beverly came for the ball. He is the star he should have demanded that ball. He sets a high pick for Bev which allows the Blazers to pressure the ball with two defenders and Matthews gets the steal. As bad as Mchale is as a coach on the technical side that could not have been what they drew up. The Rockets have had fourth quarter leads and Blazers have always come back, we lose focus when we have the lead.
You can't coach quitting/lazyness. Harden has been the one of the worst defenders I have ever laid eyes on in both the regular season and playoffs. Yea, he makes a play or two, but is just terrible elsewhere, and it is not close. He played defence when he was the 6th man for OKC. He has just tanked it when becoming the main option here.
