James Harden in Game 3 vs the Jazz, Brilliant.

Yeah for sure . Rivers and Cp3's hot shooting literally saved us .

I would say it's a great team win .... and we did show some grit .

But , I almost think the jazz lost this one more than we won it . They had way more than enough wide open threes . They also missed a bunch of free-throws .

 

He had 10 assists. And made 14/16 FTs. And we'll just sweep the, uh, (nervous chuckle) 15% FG% and 3P% into a corner somewhere.

Seriously, though, he didn't collapse. And he didn't destroy. But he had teammates to pick him up. Six Rockets in double figures in points; almost seven with Green hitting 3 threes. Clutch a.f. rebounds by PJ. All-in-all, a remarkably ugly game where the Houston Rockets as a team somehow still scrapped together a win. And Harden was key in keeping our heads above water in the fourth.

 

The Jazz really tried all in to stop Harden. When he was 0-15 in the fourth, Jazz were still sending double teams on him leaving Green wide open for consecutive threes.

 

Honorable mentions to that OG Green, he is so fantastic in dat limited role that I forgot about him.

 

I’m curious what our team points per possession was with Harden making a play. Probably way better than his FG% would suggest.

 

Essentially it was the end of the 3rd and the 4th when the Rox made their run.

Odd that the refs were pushing hard to foul out CP and JH but rarely called fouls the rest of the way.

The turnover during their fast break allowed Harden to dunk and opened up some of his game.

Jazz missing open shots, Gobert getting called for fouls in the clutch, Tucker getting rebounds, Mitchell getting frustrated....

Rest is history.

 

He had a tough night and at times it did seem to shake him - he hesitated at times and was slow to get back on D on a few occasions.

But overall, he stuck with it, found ways to contribute, and pushed through until his shots started to fall a bit - just in time to win the game.

 

Gobert really altered Harden's shot but he played excellent tonight. This was a different Harden from years past. He didn't get rattled he just kept hustling, playing smart, played excellent defense, and did the little things to win.

Great game from Harden.

 

Of course .

He hit HUGE shot in then second half to keep that scoreboard moving

 

I said in the game thread, this is one of my favorite wins of the harden era.

 

At this point people in here are content with Beard not giving up completely which is a low standard for a superstar IMO.

I dun think there is a need for this. GSW and Bucks cannot come soon enough. Let the game do the talking as always.

 

I think the difference between Harden of past and this version is that this version has Chris Paul to take over the offense when hes struggling.

 

I don't expect James to have this poor of a showing again .

Something definitely got to him tonight . I think this because there were times he tried to create a foul vs make the shot . IMO he hasn't done that all year . The example that sticks out was that corner 3 he took . Idk wtf happened there

He will learn from it and figure it out .

The only thing I worry about is I think he could have a bad game if he gets blitzed with doubles and has a high turnover game . He's been really good at maneuvering out / around / through the double this season . But, the doubling with playoff intensity will be new and could be trouble .

Otherwise the thing everyone on the team needs to keep focusing on is the defensive effort and communication .

I dunno if it's by design but we are giving up way too many open 3's . Needless to say we can't do that agaisnt any future opponent. But again , I'm optimistic here given how good we've looked the last month or so and how we are improving still .

 

I watched it closely as weird as it sounds but in the opening minutes when the Jazz were like on a 8-0 and 11-3 run respectively, he picked up 2 quick fouls I guess.

He argued with the officials for a minute and seemed frustrated up to the 3rd quarter.

The whole atmosphere was pretty tough, got to me too.

 

Hmmm I'll have to watch it again because I don't exactly remember when he was "out of it " vs when he looked locked in .

it was just a weird night for James . At one point (I think in the early 4th) he was just beautifully conducting the offense . I mean he had like 5-6 assists or would be assists in a row . Some of those came when he was just lazily* walking the ball up the court .

 

Rockets didn't win "despite" Harden..Rockets won BECAUSE of Harden..without his clutch shooting and passing in the 4th qtr Rockets lose!!

 

It's not unreasonable to have higher expectations for harden , although I get your point .

Thank god we won .

Because the current mood of "kinda underperformed" would be abject despair and panic if we had lost .

If CP3 had the same game and we lost .... there would have been 5 "overpaid" threads started within the first 10 min lol

 

Maybe they showed the game from the angles of Doris Burke.....haha.

The TNT camera was always closing in on him arguing with the refs. Always with them Jazzholes crowd screaming.

Always stressing Gobert blocking our players, or going for a steal. Gobert had 7 blocks and it looked like 10.

I saw him stealing a lot of balls though, setting up the offense at time. Harden had 6 steals.

It would give them momentum but wouldn't be the end of day.

I try not to go all gloom whatever the circumstances are after losses.

The "Overpaid" aspect of CP's contract is only valuable if you want to get premium role players. Morey is trying to get players on the cheap. Well, I forgive him. Some are good.

He surely is worth a lot of money just not that much within that timespan. Hope his contract is tradable.