I think a lot of these points were made but I will re-iterate. First of all, completely disagree with game 3, and I know you addressed it with someone else, but your wording of "hero ball" is absolutely nuts. Harden made the right play as he did what he thought was best in the moment, and at that point, that is the only decision to make. No hesitation. Came up short. Secondly, like someone else said, its the playoffs. Things tighten up with small deficits and little time, and therefore possessions are much tougher to execute. Just like its harder to inbound the ball for us, its harder for OKC to put up good shots in those moments. It just so happened they made a couple of extremely difficult plays. Executing that missed free throw and Russ' threes, not likely it will work most times. Just so happened it did this time. Harden did make a terrible turnover really late, and he knew he did, but those are the plays we say "we won so who cares". I do agree it wasn't the sharpest ways to close games today and in Game 2, but I wouldn't go as far as writing us off because of that. Sidenote: For those saying what will or wont work against the Spurs, I really do believe Grizzlies will beat SA. In fact I put big money on them to before playoffs started.
Good post brother. On a side note, while I'm not surprised that the Grizz are tied with the Spurs, I'm not sure I would be overly confident the Grizz will prevail, not saying they won't. Why do you see in that matchup that makes you so confident in the Grizzlies?
I just think this Grizzlies team is made for a playoff series. Simply put, THEY PLAY PLAYOFF BASKETBALL They're very underrated. A lot of people feel like Houston is unfairly covered and hated by the media, which I definitely agree with to a point, but the Grizzlies should feel the ultimate disrespect because they literally are never talked about (up until the "take that for data" moment.) They've had the second longest streak of making the playoffs after the Spurs I believe, as well as making a conference finals and 3 second-round appearances, yet they are an afterthought with everyone. They show up for big games and don't take any possessions off. They play physical. Very Solid D. And when Conley's game is elevated close to a Kawhi or Westbrook or Harden level (no I'm not saying hes as good, just at times he can play that well), they can beat anyone. The big men are definitely better than the rest of the West teams. They split the regular season series with the Warriors and the Spurs. Spurs are kind of lucky Tony Allen isn't covering Kawhi at times. You need a very confident offense to beat them. I don't think they would beat a Golden State because GS just has too much firepower, but I don't think Kawhi alone can carry them against this team. The Spurs' guards have their hands full with Conley and ZBO and Marc are going to bully the bigs.
Dare I ask your opinion on how the Rockets would fare against the Grizz in a hypothetical matchup? I for one think the Rockets would do pretty well against them....even with Marc Gasol and ZBO being obvious matchup problems
Somebody right now could be posting the exact same thing on the OKC board. The only difference is that from their perspective they went 1-2 down the stretch and we went 2-1. Deal with it. The playoffs can be a clusterf*** at times. Survive and advance; we won't have to worry about OKC's length and defense raising our TO rates and ruining our 3pt percentages anymore if we put up a solid effort in game 5.
Harden was going for the home run play tonight. Nene was open for a moment but Harden decided to pass too late as the gap between them closed. It was a stupid play especially in a crucial playoff game.
The Rockets were saved by the even more terrible execution by OKC. It looked like those teams were trying to impress Kim Jong Un with their terrible execution.
Man, I just re-watched the last 1-2 minutes of the game, we were very lucky not to get punished by our terrible executions. Luckily OKC also made a boneheaded play by not fouling directly after that crazy westbrook 3, which resulted in a 3 point play for Nene. But again..that last inbound play that was almost stolen by westbrook..that was not good for my heart! But the important thing is we lead 3-1!! Big big win. Love it! Worth staying late from 2.30am and screaming until 6am. Although my pregnant wife got disturbed a bit
Lingering Dwight Howard effect. In all honesty though, there hasn't been much stability to this team since Harden got here. From the whole Jeremy Lin days, one amazing season of mostly Harden, Dwight drama, and now a whole new position for him. It's hard to develop consistency and mature properly. Not an excuse for Harden because he should still value possessions at this stage but if we look at the playoff experience of the team outside of Ariza and maybe Nene, there hasn't been much. So not surprising to see people go full fetal position like Anderson or make mental mistakes like Gordon.
Yep that ******* needs to get fired but that's exactly what Le$ wants. Harden is a great offensive player but him forcing these ill advised 3 pointers bug me out.
This. Harden has been boneheaded the whole game with decision making. He has a bad habit of forcing guarded/non-rythm 3s despite being really off the entire night. He also needs to stop those lazy passes which causes so much turnovers. Dude almost lost us the game, saved by Nene and the bench.
This is James Hardens team for better or worse. He's the point guard with full artistic expression rights. Sometimes great artists have too much freedom and rely on artistic freelance and produce a terd. Think Pink Floyd and "The Final Cut". This game was Hardens "Final Cut" but we can't lose sight that when this guy is on he's capable of The Dark Side of the Moon. Even the Beatles had to deal with f-ing Yoko Ono to get John's ass in the studio. So far D'Antoni has been good for Harden but he might need to become more of a George Martin and kick Yoko out of the studio so the band can focus on laying down the track at hand.
I don't know to be honest. That's a really tough one. I do believe that the Grizz have a better shot at beating the Spurs and the Warriors than we do. Thats just my opinion. As far as us playing them in a series, tough to call. This league is all about match ups. I do like that they would have trouble scoring many points, but I do think they are mentally tougher and if Anderson keeps playing the way he is our offense isn't as deadly.
I agree. The Grizzlies have had my respect for years, and I've always winced when I knew the Rockets had to play them. They're not flashy or explosive, so they fly under the radar. They play a slow, smothering game that grinds other teams down. And they're able to do that, because they know that's how they're going to play, and they play hard. I've never seen a game where they looked lackadaisical. Meanwhile, the Rockets are highly unpredictable, and that's not comforting facing either the Spurs or the Grizzlies, who in their own ways will exploit whatever weaknesses the Rockets bring to any particular game.
I agree with you on games 2 and 4, but I'm perfectly fine with Harden taking that three without a timeout... He got a decent look and he was feeling it that game. The defense was in good position to prevent a drive, and he was unlikely to draw a foul in that situation. It's not hero ball when you go for a game winner. It's hero ball when you go for a game winner with every shot of the quarter.
