Gotta give props to Harden's improvement this season

Harden was guarding Knight a lot of the times. They switched a lot when the Buck perimeter players picked for each other. I found it weird that Lin or Bev guarded Wolters when Harden was on the floor. Props to Harden for wanting to take on the Bucks best offensive player.

 

Saw the game, and yes that 3pt shot shouldn't even count as a bucket made against Harden. Nothing you can do about it...

I still don't see how his defense was that good? I saw Middleton still having his time in general, in particular the 3rd quarter.

I'm watching that 3rd quarter again on replay, Middleton went off. If you excuse that one bull**** 3 he made with Harden in his grill, he still had a hell of a 3rd quarter. I'm not understanding where you guys are seeing that Harden did a great job(that was actually great defense on that possession), and I'm not seeing where or how Middleton's buckets could be with someone else guarding him?

Wolters & Middleton had career games against us, Harden was guarding one in some sort of the fashion-- or not. This doesn't excuse Parsons either, but I didn't see particularly good D from either...I see an improvement, yes, but not good enough.

 

Yeah I saw the switch often. And so those buckets go against Bev, or really it was Lin who was getting destroyed, but that's still bad D on our part.

Don't switch. If Wolters is destroying Lin, why are we switching? That's not better D.

 

Nothing is missing. This just means that the top 3 scorers for the Bucks last night were able to exploit every Rocket except Harden. Here you can view all of Middleton's shots:

http://on.nba.com/1ksHX1d

The only time when Middleton was able to score on Harden was on a 2v1 fastbreak situation, and when he made an extremely difficult contested shot.

Here you can also view all of Wolter's shots:

http://on.nba.com/1fWes4e

Here are all of Knight's shots:

http://on.nba.com/1fWfgX5

The truth is last night Harden played terrific defense, and probably the best perimeter defense amongst all our players. In fact, in one of the clips showing all of Knight's FGA, you could hear the Bucks commentators praising Harden's defensive tenacity.

Of all the shots between Wolters, Knight and Middleton, Harden only committed a defensive error once when Knight made a backdoor cut which Harden wasn't able to get to.

So to be honest, if anyone claims Harden played poor defense last night, then they either:
1) Didn't watch the game
2) Prejudiced against Harden

 

It really seems like people have taken that first Clippers game where Harden guarded Redick and got tons of hate across the internet (admittedly an awful performance on defense by Harden), and have used that as the standard for Harden's defense. He's not great, but he's hardly as awful as people want to believe. More often than not, he's fine.

 

This is the nonsense I am talking about.

Harden seldom if ever guarded Wolters. James is not Scottie Pippen defensively but he is certainly improved the last 3-4 weeks since his ankles and feet have healed. He is also better defensively than last year.

 

Harden needs to find his 3 and D before he can say he had improved.

It's like I have really skinnier arms and legs compared to last year but I can't say I have lost weight when my gut had doubled and I had put on 5 KGs!

 

Pretty simple really. Harden guarded Knight, Middleton and Neal at different times and he didn't give up much. The video has been posted twice in this thread, you can watch it yourself. Did you watch the video? If so then how can you not see that there was someone else guarding him when he scored?

What's so hard to understand about that? Harden guarded multiple players throughout the game and they switched on the pick and rolls. The times that Harden was on Middleton he didn't do anything and Harden was never on Wolters.

So if you watched the game then why did you say that "Harden let Middleton go off" when he only allowed one basket to Middleton and it was a contested desperation shot? Doesn't sound like you paid much attention to what was happening on the court. It's not like you're going to mistake someone else for Harden.

If you did watch the game and/or the video and you still think that Harden gave up all those points to Middleton then I really don't know what to tell you. Actually I do...Harden is the guy with the mohawk and the beard.

 

Do not think any player did particularly badly on defense last night. Harden's TOs were more damaging than his defense. Other than that, Bucks just hit a lot of jump shots.

 

He seems the same or a little worse to me. Maybe my expectations were too high but i thought he would average over a couple more points and raise his fg% by 3-5 percent.


I mean he barely missed the allstar game this year, don't get me wrong i love harden but i dont think he's ever goong to be a Wade or Kobe type superstar, he's closer to being a more stable Monte Ellis. Hope he proves me wrong over the years.

 

Harden would have been able to play much better defense if he was able to get proper rest. Just too many 40+ minutes a game. It is humanly impossible for us fans to expect much more defensively. If he had an adequate backup, I bet you would see a more potent Harden on both sides of the ball.

That goes for Parsons as well.

 

I disagree that his defense has improved this season. It has improved the last month, as in he is PLAYING defense now. Before, it literally looked like he just didn't care on defense. Guys just blew past him and he would always go for the back tip. Now he is putting the effort and energy into making guys work on the offensive end. Maybe he has always been capable, maybe he just needed to get his feet healthy, I don't know. Whatever it is, he needs to keep it up for the rest of the season we need perimeter D desperately.

 

It's hard to imagine that someone who's so quick laterally can be caught off position so much, which is what Harden was doing for about a year and a quarter with the Rockets. The obvious problem is that Harden (earlier this year and all of last year) was also one of the most risky defensive players in the league. You could tell that he's salivating over the passing lanes to try for breakaway steals. It's part of what he likes to do, jump the passing lane. Better NBA players can easily fake out a pass and he would get caught off position, making his defense look like a complete joke at times.

What I've noticed in the past games since he returned from injury is that he isn't jumping the passes as much. He seems more interested in keeping his ground and not trying to go for the easy points. I think with Dwight developing his low post game, Harden and the overall defense are not taking as many chances. They will get burnt at times, but Harden, overall, has improved drastically. If you watched the game, he was staying in front and beating defenders to the spots while actually applying tremendous pressure on the ball. I'm even more impressed at how at times, he's trying to deny the ball to his man. He's a lot more active and I'd like to think that it's contributed by the team not relying on his offense nearly as much. He can exert more defensive energy and take less risks and lazy chances for easy points. It's going to be important down the line to allow DH and Jones (and Asik) to not get in foul trouble because people are roaming in freely.

 

Morey calling him out?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Rockets new video room. Defensive mistakes will be nearly life sized on the 20ft x 13ft screen! <a href="http://t.co/A4f7rII3E6">pic.twitter.com/A4f7rII3E6</a></p>&mdash; Daryl Morey (@dmorey) <a href="https://twitter.com/dmorey/statuses/432915740484583424">February 10, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Harden shot 48% from 2 last season, he is currently shooting 53% from 2.

His 3PT% is the only thing dragging his FG% down.

Wade was praised a lot last season and this season for his impressive FG%, but looking at his 2PT%, they are actually quite similar to Harden's (54% last season, and 56% this season). Wade was able to maintain an impressive FG% because he took only one 3PT per game.

That means if Harden all of a sudden decided to stop taking as many 3s, his FG% should rise a lot.

 

I think he is going to be way closer to wade and kobe than monte ellis. ANd if he does end up in the monte ellis tier, that would be a disappointment.

 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xwVBg8p0sHs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I made a video of JH13 mid -range jumpers this year ... i know mid-range aren't efficient shoots but are fun and every star must have a reliable one in his arsenal.