Harden spoiled us with him having good games after nights like this one, right? I think he is taking Nets to the ECF tomorow with a monster of 40/15/15. What does /dish think about that?
seems like you’re trying to troll, but if not, Harden is nowhere near 100% and probably won’t do sh*t unless he makes a few hobbled stepback threes he has zero explosion or burst…I don’t think he drove inside the 3 point line more than 3 or 4 times all game
if he manages 15 points on adequate efficiency with a good amount of rebounds and assists in 40+ minutes, then I think that’s about as good as u could reasonably hope as a best case scenario for him at this moment in time
I think as long as he brings the defense and his high IQ, he should be alright. I can't believe Nash played him 40+ minutes last night. I get that they are desperate, but damn, he just came back from a hamstring injury. Seems nuts to me. I guess Steve adapted Mike D's philosophy that if he is cleared, he can play whatever amount of minutes he chooses to play him.
I’ve seen the reasoning used that it’s better to be continuously out there and active than to sit for long stretches and have the hamstring lock up, and while it was 46 minutes which does seem crazy, Harden didn’t attempt to drive or spend time breaking down his man so it was basically 46 minutes of slowly dribbling the ball up the court to hand it to KD with a few stepback three attempts mixed in
Nets should probably not even play him but that isn't going to happen. The way he was moving on the court screams trying to avoid a re-injury or aggravating the injury. Zero explosion and tentative steps. Either the wrap/hamstring/conditioning is restricting his movement or fear of injury is - either way that's not good. After 2 days of listening to probably everyone screaming at them for not targeting Harden on defense more, I'd expect coach Bud and the Bucks to suddenly have an epiphany and eventually realize, "hey maybe we should attack Harden on defense!" If that happens, it's bad news for the hamstring and the nets defense.
for me the best case scenario is he doesn't aggravate the injury... everything else is just a sweet bonus
