If that's all it is, then explain why, say, the Cavs defense is perfectly capable when they have Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving? Scheme matters and ours is bad. That doesn't excuse Harden's defense obviously, but it goes beyond just him.
Not to mention that Harden has been our highest minute weakest link going on 4 years now. Our ranks on defense since we got Harden 16th 12th 6th 27th this year. We have been more than capable of fielding above average and even a top 10 defense with Harden. Something different is happening this year and it's on everyone. People can keep worrying about offense when it's never been our problem since the day Harden arrived, but in reality our problem is defense. Harden plays a big part in that, but if you think this is all on him for why we went from 6th last year to 27th this year you are wrong. And if you think a team with Harden can't be good defensively you are also wrong. It's been done before.
It's splitting hairs. Harden's defensive issues are more effort related than theirs, but they're all very bad nonetheless. Still doesn't support DD's claim, though. The Cavs have a solid defense. Love and Kyrie are universally considered bad at defense. If the logic we're going with is the defense "is only as good as the weakest link", then they should have a bad defense, no? Or maybe there's more to defense than just that. Maybe.
No my point was that it's ridiculous for people to complain about our three point shooting in a game where we shoot a high volume at 48%. If teams are packing the paint then that doesn't mean that midrange shots are open. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. No team in the NBA is very efficient from midrange. Who on the Rockets is going to shoot all of these midrange shots at a high percentage? Why do people seem to believe that if we can't hit much of anything from behind then arc then we're definitely going to light it up from midrange? The fact is that you have to be 33% more efficient from midrange than you do from 3pt range and that's isn't very likely to happen. Are there cases when they shoot so badly from the 3 point line that we'd have been better shooting midrange, yeah that's happened but it's the exception. Why do we keep shooting 3's when we're already shooting them badly? Because they expect to make the next one. That sounds simplistic but it's the truth. For every time that we shoot badly for the whole game there's more than one case where we start out badly and heat up. No scenario is going to work every time but the majority of the time we're more efficient shooting 3's.
You guys think James harden is ruined ? Clutchfans please , can we have a little of the discipline that " James harden is supposed to have " and not let threads like this go to 5 pages .
There's plenty of examples. Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard are both terrible defenders yet their teams manage to play good defense(in Lillards case, I'm referring to last years Blazers). Likewise for DeRozan, he's statistically worse than Harden yet Toronto plays good D. OKC is #5 in opponents FG% yet Enis Kanter is as bad of a defender as there is in the league. Derrick Rose is statistically one of the worst defenders in the league, way below Harden, yet the Bulls are #1 in opponents FG%. JJ Redick is one of the lowest rated defensive players in the league yet the Clippers rank 6th in opponents FG%. Also, Dwayne Wade, he's ranked way below Harden defensively yet Miami is #7 in opponents FG%. Jeff Teague is one of the worst rated defensive players in the league but Atlanta is #11 in opponents FG%. Even Dallas is in the top half of the league in opponents FG% despite having Nowitzki and Barrea in the lineup. How is it that all of these teams have managed to play good defense even though they have a weak defender in the lineup?
We take 30.9 three pointers per game, first in the league. We shoot .352% from three point range, 15th in the league. When you have an average three point shooting team leading the league in three pointers per game how is that playing the system that fits your players? It isn't. Actually I'm curious what their median three point shooting is during the season. These are moreyball statistics. Take an amalgamation and claim it a success. Of course going iso against the Washington Wizards and the Sacramento Kings is going to work much better than when you're playing better teams. It's also going to work a lot better with 3 minutes left in the second quarter than it's going to work with 3 minutes left in the 4th quarter and in the playoffs when bail out foul calls are less likely to happen. So giving me iso averages that include James Harden leading the league in free throw shooting really demonstrates the point that averages are irrelevant winning against good teams and winning in the playoffs. The energy he expends on these iso plays, which are super high energy plays, also takes away from his defense, stagnates the offense, often putting it in a funk, and I think that's patently obvious. These are the favorite stats of Harden apologists and of course they're also irrelevant. There's a reason why point guards lead every other position in this category. It's because you're not discriminating between a point guard dribbling the ball up from the back court into the front court and any player receiving the ball in the front court and going one on one. Harden doesn't dribble the ball up from the back court on most every possession like typical point guards. C'mon dude. This was sarcasm to The Freak's post that Harden played great in 2014-2015 because he was embarrassed by playing with better players in the Olympics.
Of course it is probably on James Harden, but a good coach can help facilitate good growth for a player.
This is basic math, it really shouldn't be this difficult. Three point shots count 1.5 times as much as a 2 point shot. So shooting .352% from three point range is the equivalent of shooting 52.8% from 2 point range. What are you not getting there? No team in the NBA shoots 52.8% from midrange. So if you aren't shooting those 3's then what shots are you replacing them with where we can hit at a rate higher than 52.85 for that volume of shots? Did you get that? As bad as you think our 3 point shooters are, they are still more efficient than any team in the league is from midrange. Why would you lobby for us to shoot less efficient shots? You seem to be missing the whole point of the system. When one shot provides 150% more points than another shot, you don't have to be highly efficient to still provide more points. Also realize that when you do most anything at a higher volume then the efficiency is likely to go down. Even with our high volume of 3's our efficiency is still better than midrange because of the huge 50% higher points awarded from behind the arc. Would we be even better with elite three point shooters? Sure, but those guys those guys aren't that easy to acquire. Even average three point shooters are still much more efficient than midrange shots...that's the whole point of the system. As I said, this is basic math. It's something that every team in the NBA knows and it's the reason that you've seen the huge spike in 3 point attempts in recent history. These are stats tracked by the NBA and they are accurate. Harden runs iso 5 more times per game than Steph Curry. That's what you attribute our defensive problems to? Really? 5 possessions per game is killing our defense? These are facts and they are undisputed unless you care to allege that the NBA stats are inaccurate. Harden brings the ball up most times, just as Curry and most other primary ball handlers do... but they don't do it every time. You can continue to make up statistics but you'll continue to be wrong. Harden has more back court touches than Wall, Walker, Lowry, Thomas, Lillard, Westbrook, Paul, Conley or Dragic so the huge differential that you're describing doesn't exist. .[/QUOTE]
the bottomline for me is that this season has been a failure due to all parties involved -- the players, GM, coaches, owner, refs have all played their part to varying degrees. even harden, who reportedly worked hard on his game all summer, i don't see what exactly he improved on. certainly not his defensive footwork, his postgame footwork, his ballhandling. the most puzzling thing to me is why he still hasn't developed a floater. for a guy that can't play above the rim and has centered his game around driving to the hoop, i find that most peculiar.
Doubt there is any source where we could look up exactly how many times we as a team have passed up a no doubt sure fire layup for a 3 this year, but if the over under were set at 5 I'd take the under. And I can guarantee you no one is directing these guys to pass up lay ups for 3s. Seeing as how the point of the offense is layups, free throws and threes and in most cases the 3 is the least efficient of the 3 shots we look to take. Just don't think this complaint, like many other clutchfans complaints, are based in reality. So many of the complaints you get around here is over reaction to confirmation bias. People look for Harden to do a certain thing and when he does it, even though it's not very often whatsoever, people see it and are like "SEE he does this **** all the time!!" No different than the always walking the ball up begging for an 8 second call or the always passing off to contested shooters as the clock winds down. Difference here is there are stats we can look up to refute those claims.
Passing up layups to shoot 3's is a problem, that's true. It's also true that it's hard to kill a bear with a stick but neither of those things applies to the Rockets. The Rockets philosophy is to get shots at the rim, 3's and layups. When are we passing up shots at the rim? You can go to stats.nba.com/scores and go to the boxscore of any game you like and you can see the video of every shot. Feel free to go find where the Rockets are passing up layups in order to shoot 3's. I look forward to seeing what you find.
Aelliot has done a great job of explaining that. I'd also add our team would look different if we had DMo. But the league has been trending towards the Rocket's style of basketball.
McHale has the best winning % of any Rockets coach. Is it that McHale is the GOAT? Is it that Harden is better than Hakeem? Is it that the Rockets under McHale has been the most talented group in history? Too many of y'all are looking for simple answers to complex questions or simply pushing an agenda.
