Nice analysis - and conclusion. But this is also why we are going to get smoked by the top teams. Unless we can keep both on the floor for the entire game.
Totally agree. Although he missed the two threes he tried in the Pistons game, he did knock a couple down against Magic. He is more likely to be open for threes if the ball ever gets kicked out to him and thus he will have a higher percentage look on threes. Not sure why he missed a couple easy LU's; my guess is like everyone else' that he might have been fouled but got no calls. Have not seen replays on these either, kind of strange. The way Rockets have played so far in the preseason and game one though, he has more opportunities within or just outside the paint. But for some reason, he almost always choose passing the ball to someone and more often than not that person either passes the ball to someone else or misses the shot or did not even catch the ball and he gets the TO. Whatever he can do to get his jumpers and floaters back will greatly help his stats, which is what everyone has been concerned about. By the way, great posting on defensive coverage of Harden earlier on in the thread. Didn't get a chance to comment, was reading so fast. What do you think of the matchup tonight against Hawks? Their bench is much better than Pistons' and Rockets' combined. They have Lou Williams, Morrow and Tolliver. We have Delfino.
Thanks. As for the Hawks game, I think our Starters can probably keep up or at least score effectively. Sadly, our Bench is probably going to get creamed unless they play Harden and Lin a ton of minutes. IF we win, it won't be by much and it will be similar to Detroit... Harden/Lin/Asik racking up the lead and the bench giving it away. Atlanta is a legitimate playoff team. And unless the Bench can learn to play serious Defense and find some passable scoring, all of the starting lineup's hard work will be sadly wasted.
If you have actually been watching him play instead of trying to pass off inferences from 82games stats as insights, you would know that he can shoot the long-2 and hit the hop-and-pop just fine, even though his hop looks awkward on that hop-and-pop. The reason his stats in those aren't stellar is that he rarely ever chooses to shoot those unless something has gone terribly wrong with the offensive possession. To put it another way, his long-2 stats were skewed by the fact that most of the long-2s he took were forced long-2s. He can shoot the "good" long-2s (oxymoron really) just fine. This fact is going to become very obvious to you very soon now that Harden is a Rocket (assuming that you can stream games F U Crapcast).
I watched most of his playoff games and some of their games last year - maybe 20 in total. They are a fun team (OKC) to watch especially with how bad our Rockets were. If you understand anything I am talking about then you would know that mid-range game does not equal "long-2s". Long 2's are a bad shot in basketball. Great players don't shoot them at all. Mid-range game is something every great player should have in their arsenal.
Here is great read on the midrange game and why it is still so effective even with the 3 point line. Enjoy. http://www.hoopskills.com/lost-art-mid-range-game.html
I think they have 3 starters return from last year's team and got a lot of new pieces in the off season like us. But theirs are more vets vs our rookies. Team chemistry wise it's likely a wash. Al Horford just came back from injury. i truly hope that will give Asik an edge. But Josh Smith presents the biggest mismatch.
I agree on the chemistry being similar, however there's a BIG difference between vets without chemistry and rookies without chemistry. This will show in terms of passing/scoring instincts, better exploitation of the differences in NBA vs NCAA rulesets, confidence, familiarity with various offensive and defensive playsets (MUCH easier to implement for players that Already know alot of them) and in some cases straight out talent. I wouldn't be surprised if the Hawks bench beats our bench senseless. We got Talent, but we don't got much experience in that 2nd unit...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>.@<a href="https://twitter.com/jharden13">jharden13</a> was missed last night when the Thunder played the Spurs.Mark my words: he will be a superstar in Houston.</p>— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/MagicJohnson/status/264454772151701504" data-datetime="2012-11-02T19:51:45+00:00">November 2, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Magic, LeBron are two NBA superstars that have endorsed Harden. Wade did also I believe. His game is true. He just needed to be featured.
Hell yes, seriously. If I were Chinese and Yao was playing his first games in America, I'd be excited even if they were difficult to watch. Even if I had to be up in the middle of the night to watch the games, even if I had to go to a bar to see them, even if I had to change providers, or whatever. But I've been watching this team for decades and I have spent thousands of dollars (at least) doing so. My father took me to my first game when I was about 5. That was 38 years ago. This is the first year ownership took the games away from me. Why should I give a damn about the team when the team so obviously doesn't give a damn about the fans?
