There were one or two short lapses that had me kind of worried but overall he played ok given the really poor shooting. He stayed engaged in an ugly game and hit the shots when they really counted. And we got the W, which in the end makes up for it all.
That's the thing tho man. People forget he is our PG on offense. Rather, hes our offense. Not just a scorer. He will have bad shooting nights. But he contributes, not only just scoring But breaking defenses and passing and not to mention defense is what is so important. I mean if you ignored his scoring, this may be one of his best games. But you look at the scoring and are like aghhhhh.... The jazz executed there anti-harden defense almost perfectly tonight, finally, and they got beat because Harden adjusted and became the facilitator. Soooooooo brilliant man. I wish more people could recognize that. A great game isnt always defined by efficiency.
Like I said in another post . There was a stretch of this game where James looked like CP3 to me . This isn't the proper term , but he was facilitating the **** out of the ball lol . It was so smooth and calm it was weird to watch
That's the correct adjustment tho right? If they are absolutely doing everything in their power to prevent you from scoring, what's the beat way to beat them if your James? Its 100% the pass and hope the team shows up.
The 2 threes Gerald hit in the 4th were huge. Knocking down those contested shots after sitting on the bench the majority of the night was not easy.
I never doubted he'd figure it out, but to say he was brilliant seems very off to me. He started passing off randomly on open layups. The one where Ingles never engaged and he passed to Paul, then Paul had to bring it back out was clear that he was starting to feel a little concerned to take over on his own. Regardless, I'm glad he got it under control. He was far from brilliant compared to how well he's played this season and playoffs so far, but he did enough to get us the win and I love it.
Its brilliiant that despite the whole jazz org, coaching, team, players, media, haters prepared and focused on him he still led the rockets to win +4 bpm 2nd only to ego Fyi cp3 was -6 bpm
Sometimes it can get overwhelming if you are the sole focus of an opposing teams whole defense. Its on his teammates to step up. Even giannis, lebron, kd, and steph cant do everything
No other player gets the defensive treatment Harden does. He literally is unstoppable if you guard him 1v1. If our other players hit their shots consistently, we win all our games. Which is why no other team wants to play us.... not even the Warriors.
Hard as the jazz played its surprising they didnt come up with the win. Show how great the bench was for houston. James did come back alive thou in the 4th gordon and paul kept them in the game big time.. I think the rockets might sweep. Dont know utah might play insane next game or give up and we fly further west coast to you know where.
Green is a big-time pro. It's a shame Morey took advantage of him. I hope Green tells Morey to eat another piece of pie when Morey tries to kiss up to him this offseason.
Lol he really didn’t, how many times did a shooter shoot a wide open shot because he didn’t get back on d? Anyways he showed he can affect the team without shooting well on OFFENSE and he kept shooting which I was happy about. If you think he’s gonna be able to do what he did last night against a good shooting team well idk what to tell you. Either way we won, on to the next
People have this incredibly wrong perception that star players have great playoff games every single night. Lebron has had ****ing awful playoff games. Jordan has. Hakeem has. Harden didn’t have a great game last night but he did exactly what you want to see your superstar do when it isn’t his night. He setup teammates until he could get that shot to fall. Nobody should be in the least bit disappointed in him. They should be pumped to see how much this man has matured.
all things considered (league office basically doing everything in their power to try and make him look bad), he look ok
He looked gassed at times - altitude didn't help. On one defensive possession in the 4th his man had the ball and he was crouched down with his hands on his knees.
Harden got absolutely pummeled this game, how many times did the jazz deliberately hard foul him was absurd. They were trying to get harden frustrated and you could tell harden was affected mentally by all the physicality but props to him he still played smart and never let the physicality affect his decision making. Couple years ago harden would have absolutely disintegrated, but not anymore. This game makes me believe we are on our way to a championship!