Should we be worried about Harden's 3 point shooting?

He hurt his hand, he hurt is ankle; so yeah I’m paying attention to it but not really concerned. Plus he’s been bored it seems.

I’m concerned but not worried if that makes sense. More cautious than anything.

He does seem to always get nicked up going into the playoffs and refuses to rest up and heal.

But this year is different. His minutes are being limited. He’s actually going to get rest days. He has legit help.

I think by the 2nd round he will be in dominating mid season form.

 

Harden does take a lot contested threes. If he is feeling it, good, if not then he just needs to use his other weapons more (taking his man off the dribble to the basket or pulling up in the paint for a mid range jumper). With possible rest coming towards the end of the season, and Paul to take some of the ball handling and running the offense, MDA just needs to stagger/manage Harden's minutes to keep him fresh during the playoff games and not reduce the rotation below 9 guys so that guys don't get tired at the end of games or in the latter part of the series.

 

Harden has an all around game the 3 is ONE aspect of it. He has uncanny court vision and ability to draw fouls in addition to the help that has been added to the roster and improvement of the Capela fella. So am I worried ... hell to the naw
He dices and slices and makes french fries in three different ways

 

I agree with all this -- as I said above, I think the problem is just lack of focus. It's been pretty clear we were gonna finish with the league's best record and an MVP for Harden for a few weeks now, and his best games have been against the best teams.

... But one minor correction. Harden's regulation against detroit wasn't just bad, it was terrible. And not just by his standards, but by anyone's standards.

 

Yeah, I agree. That was probably his worst game of the year. It's hard to rip on him too much though since he ended up 21-8-5. There's a lot of players that would take those numbers for the worst of their year.

I do feel we are still underdogs vs healthy GS, but I have us as favorites vs injured GS. I also don't think we need a perfect Harden to win either. We are very deep with multiple players who can get 25 while playing solid defense. Some of them will step up like they have all year. They aren't weak minded people and they have each other's backs.

We have skill, length, physicality, confidence, speed, experience, and coaching. I damn sure wouldnt want to play us if I was a fan of another team!

 

A few factors for me.

1. He shot poorly in pre-season.
2. Whilst his playoff shooting numbers haven't been good, Harden explicitly worked on shooting contested 3s. He is currently shooting 45% on step back 3s.
3. Harden doesn't care about his own shooting numbers. Lately, he has been deliberately taking tough contested shots even by his own standards simply because he can.

The best example would be the games against Portland and Toronto. Those two are by far the toughest competition this team has faced in the last 20 games, and Harden shot very well against them.

Harden is straight up coasting at the moment, and I think that's fine.

 

If he aint hitting, we aint winning. Need to play out of their mind if they want to beat the GSWs.

 

Meh... he takes the most ridiculously tough shots in the league. His FG% is naturally going to be a bit lower because of that. I care much more about True Shooting %, a stat which Harden is among the league leaders.

 

What do you mean? He hits 100% in the highlights. #FakeNews

 

He's passing the ball really well and others are hitting their shots. That will open Harden up in the playoffs if they start hitting shots.

 

I’ll give that you are great at creating a million alternate ids

 

Replying to urself is a sign of mental problems

 

He will be good after a couple days of rest.

 

Harden's 3PT% by month this season

.346
.432
.367
.366
.372
.280

No real pattern except this month is by far his worst.

Whether it's fatigue or injury, a little extra rest wouldn't hurt -- and with the big lead on GS, the opportunity is there.

 

He does take a lot of unnecessary off balanced, contested, tightly guarded threes. With that said usually his 3 point percentage has been respectable. I just hope and pray he takes smart 3s in the playoffs. It's all fun and cool to do a deeep heat check in the regular season against the Suns or something, but come playoff time against the Blazers, Thunder, or Warriors that's not gonna fly.

 

My take as well.

 

1/8 against the Suns, again

 

you should stop posting

 

he's always been streaky this isn't news. Same for Gordon really.