Collins got Hardens Motor Running (nba.com article)

just a word · Dec 20, 2012

torocan said: ↑

Harden is a fairly average defender in some ways, but horrible in others.

The most immediate of defensive weakness I see is his lack of contesting on shots. Aside from closing out (which he often doesn't do), more importantly he often doesn't put his hand in the face of the shooter. Hand in the face alone is enough to drop shooting percentages by 10%.

Even if Harden never learned to body up his man correctly, or to funnel his opponent to help defense, just closing out and putting his hand up would improve his defensive effectiveness tremendously.

That and he needs to resist cheating so far for steals. Cheating for a steal in itself isn't bad, but it is VERY bad if you cheat for a steal and then do NOT attempt to close out and contest.

Lin is guilty of cheating on steals sometimes as well, but he generally tries to close out and contest and is often fast enough to get away with it.

Close out. Hand up. Those 2 simple adjustments and Harden would be much more effective defensively.
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Agreed with this, and I saw that article on how just putting a hand up helps so much, more than even distance from the shooter. And I can't really mind so much that both Lin and Harden cheats on steals, especially when playing together, because I remember reading in one of those Sloan analytic papers that having more than one person good with steals on the floor exponentially improves steals for the team (good synergy; ironically having two good defensive rebounders is bad synergy, though two offensive rebounders have good synergy).

But yeah, closing out and having a hand up... or at LEAST having a hand up.

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Collins got Hardens Motor Running (nba.com article)

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