I saw someone saying Carmelo Anthony's clutch stats are not terrible, they are actually pretty good. Far better than Kobe's.
Now this is an area I can agree with. He has not been his elite self in the clutch and it IS a good test for the playoffs. Close games in the regular season contain similar factors to a playoff game: 1) Those who win early, win more 2) All players, including our own, concentrate and execute better 3) You discover whether a team has an extra gear to kick into 4) Referees are more tolerant of contact Of course when you look at this game, it's obvious Harden is the only reason this was a game at all. Almost no one else showed up, so it is impossible to pin the loss on Harden. This is not a game where the team showed what it's capable of and Harden had to finish it. Context is important. What we are discussing here is: how come Harden carried the Rockets against the 2nd best team in the league, losing by 2 points only and ended up being the 2nd best out of 30 players late in the game. It's important to acknowledge that it is Harden's problem but not his fault that we are in the situation where we need one guy to do that in most games. But Harden doesn't complain like a typical superstar, he just does the max he can do. Now, what I think is contributing to this is, Harden can't carry a team anymore than he's carried. We used to rely on Howard to slow down the opponent and almost all his points used to come easily in the early part of the game. This left Harden to do a lot of damage late in the game. But these days even if Harden is not doing a lot of scoring early, he is still running the team more as a PG. This is doing two things: 1) Tiring him out. 2) Giving the opponent way more repetition in defending him. I can't see it changing much. He's going to get slightly better this season, but not much till we get more help. He created 66 out of 110 points tonight, that's not sustainable. I think Williams will help a lot as he gets integrated, and the team will start sharing the ball with each other the way they used to. None of them are really good enough to carry us with iso's, but as a unit they can be offensively potent. Right now there are too many 'pass once then shoot' possessions, and it's probably because the team is feeling like it has to rush to get 50 3pa's up, and they will get a hang of it soon. Good game tonight for Harden and even the Rockets defense was pretty good.
He was clutch in that comeback win vs Chicago where they were down 8 with a couple minutes to go. He was clutch at Minnesota where they were down 13 with a few minutes to go. He was clutch in that double OT win at Golden State. He was clutch in that win at Philly where a lot of his teammates were struggling. He was clutch on that final possession against OKC where he found Nene under the basket instead of forcing up a contested 3-pointer(like Westbrook did). He was clutch when he hit a big three with under a minute to go in that home win against the Celtics. He was clutch when he found Gordon for a 3-pointer and hit a midrange jumper with under 2 minutes to go in that comeback win against the Nets. And he was absolutely clutch when he dropped an historic 53-17-16 triple double on the Knicks on New Year's Eve to will his team to a win. I don't know where this idea that Harden isn't clutch comes from. Has he had some poor performances this season? Sure. Has he had his struggles in the playoffs during his career? Absolutely. But the Rockets probably lose most if not all of the games I cited had it not been for Harden's terrific play late in the 4th quarter. And that's to say nothing of how much they'd struggle the rest of the time if they didn't have him in uniform.
"Good teams don't win close games -- they avoid them" -- Daryl Morey (2009) "In today's NBA, you have to avoid close games at all costs; otherwise, incompetent officials will help your opponent win close games with a series of incorrect calls/non-calls" -- Clutchfans Proverb You have to give credit to the Spurs, though. They know which side the coin is going to land on post ASB.
Harden often goes for fouls in clutch time, the percentage as expressed isn't TS% and therefore does NOT reflect his actual clutch performance. Case in point in the game vs. the Spurs Harden drove the basket and got fouled in the last minute (only made 1/2 at the line though). On that quoted stat this play would reflect as a missed shot but yet still netted 1 point. He might still be lower than some of the other players mentioned but probably far less pronounced.
He was clutch in the Toronto win in Toronto. He was huge in the Utah win in the clutch. The OP is ignorant and has a biased
He's certainly had some clutch shots this year, but he isn't close to what he was in the '15 season in terms of being clutch.
You don't think the pass to Nene vs OKC was a clutch play? Or setting up Ariza for that game-tying 3 at Minnesota?
Not really. I think Ariza hitting the game-tying 3 is infinitely more clutch than Harden making the pass.
He did play well down the stretch in Toronto, but the bench won that game early in the 4th. That's when they went on that run and the Raptors were clearly gassed. Harden just finished them off. Ariza deserves props for making the shot(and another one before that). But Harden is the one who set it up by driving into the paint and kicking the ball out.
Harden got to the rim more in 14-15. Now he's relying more on passing and 3pt shooting. So far the former has been more effective in the clutch
Sorry, but no. It's easy to make the proper basketball play. It's hard to actually hit the game tying 3. The concept of "clutch passes" seems like a desperate attempt to give Harden more credit than he deserves. Do you even remember that play? After Ariza received the pass, he pump faked to get a defender in the air, took a dribble to his left, repositioned his feet, and hit the game tying 3. He deserves all the credit for that play.
There are positives to take away from this game. Many posters have pointed them out already, so I won't bother to rehash them here. While I don't like the missed free throw, I applaud James being aggressive near the end and steamrolling to the basket. Kawhi just made a fantastic LeBron-esque block. I'd rather James do that than mosey the ball up, dance around for ten seconds then jack up a contested step-back three.
It was just a good game and Leonard made one more play than harden and got the 2pt win. Like coach POP said. All the games against these two teams have been the same. Very close we're either team could have won. Harden was fantastic Leonard was just a little better. It's all good those guys are two of the three best players in the game. Rockets and Spurs have to play again in the playoffs. I just want to see it from a basketball perspective. And if we're talking playoffs Leonard has just as much to prove as harden. He's been pretty bad. But I don't think that matters because both will be fantastic come late April and on.
Harden has not been clutch, but it should never have been that close. It actually makes sense that he's less clutch since he's shying away more and more from his midrange game. So envious of Kawhi and how he's able to hit a clutch three, lay-up and mid-to-long range shot. Harden this year has not been attacking that much, not using his mid-range and since he goes ISO on his threes they are low %.
Not sure about recently, but for his career in Denver, he was by far the best at taking last second shots....did I say, by far. He was great as a freshman at Syracuse, too. Remember, he won the title as a freshman.
