I agree with almost all of your post, but I don't think people realize how often superstars have some truly bad moments in the playoffs. maybe harden has had more than most if we're comparing him to top 10 all-timers, but stars, especially when the only star on their team and going up against elite defenses, can put up some bad performances from time to time (though harden almost doing it to himself by not driving was weird). his shot against us notwithstanding, Stockton was a notorious playoff underperformer. Malone, too. they each have some of the biggest drop-offs in stats in the playoffs vs regular season. isiah threw away (literally) a chance to beat boston with the steal by bird. magic johnson was tragic johnson for a while because of the 1984 finals. could you imagine this place after the choke city games? back to back 4th quarter 18 and 20 point leads blown after losing a game 7 the year before and not even getting out of the first round for 6 playoffs? without knowing what was going to happen next, how different the legend of hakeem probably seemed at that moment. I don't have any specific bird moments but it's underrated how big a dropoff he has in playoff PER. guy almost never played a series without homecourt advantage in his career (seriously, 1 series in the entire 80's) and "only" got 3 titles. kobe 6/24 in game 7. numerous other "shoot 'til my team loses" games. or even a "stop shooting because i hate my teammates" game. lebron just straight up choking away an entire title in 2011 when just a mediocre performance probably gets the job done (maybe he's not the guy in last year's finals without 2011, who knows). and on and on. as much as harden sucked, it tends to happen unless you have michael jordan on your team. I remember thinking how good harden had been this series some time in the late 3rd/early 4th quarter and then he proceeded to shut me up. hopefully there's more games 1, 3, 4, first 3.75 quarters of game 5 left in him.
Exactly what I came here to post. As Rockets fans, this should be known. People, basketball has been a competitive sport for quite some time, mmmkay??
IMO, chocking usually means that a player, or a team... had the "deer in the headlights" syndrome, lost their composure, and played out of their norm... in a bad loss. I won't say Harden had a full choke job... but he definitely choked a little bit in crunch time. He needs to make up for it, or it's going to hang on him like a bad suit.
There's a big difference between a bad performance, and losing your composure and falling apart. A bad performance could mean a poor shooting night, not making good passes and turning the ball over too much, not being good on rotations, and other similar game variables. But falling apart and losing his composure... to the point of halting the whole teams offense... sitting on the ball for almost 20 seconds... not knowing what to do or where to go with the ball... making his teammates stand around and watch him sit on the ball... settling for last second bombs... playing soft and slow, and committing costly turnovers.... those are not things that those other players did. Again, I'm not agreeing to the point that Harden had a major choke job last night. But I'm definitely saying that he DID fail as a leader last night, and his play could be considered choking a bit.
I still basically agree. harden may not have choked, but it was "something." it wasn't just an off game. he played like he forgot there was a shot clock. but completely botching the offense for long stretches at the end of games is still pretty much what those other guys did and what tons of stars have done, we just don't remember the play by play from 20 years ago or maybe they did it slightly differently. I mean lebron mostly spent the 4th quarters of 2011 just passing it to teammates and standing in the corner. I've watched tim duncan miss like 7 free throws in the final minutes of a game only to have big shot bob pull him out of the fire. I've seen SG's chucking too many jumpers and PG's turning from floor general to flustered turnover machine (chris paul has done this a few times). harden did a little of it all but implosions just happen to people not named jordan. i mean, if we're just talking dribbling for 20 seconds and shooting a jumper, that was the cavs' entire offense for the last 5 minutes of game 7. they still somehow won, but sometimes stars just go into iso-mode and don't return. it just seems like these things snowball in the playoffs. if you're "off" in the regular season, you give it to eric gordon and let him try for a while. in the playoffs, the best player probably feels like they are supposed to do it all, so not only are they off, but they keep doing even stupider stuff to try to make up for the stupid thing they just did and by the end they realize "hmm, if I had just stopped at stupid thing number 1 we probably would have won the game even without me making a good play to make up for it."
doesn't choking require being up big at one point in the game then losing it? How can it be a choke job when the game is close the entire time and you lose by 3 on the road to a 60+ win team? if anything harden just came up short.... we all know had we won that game the media would have given kawahi a pass for being hurt... had harden been in kawahi's shoes and they lost the media would be ripping harden even harder than they are today for not playing through pain when the team needed you most... this guy gets no respect i swear
I dont think a big lead is a prerequisite for 'choking'... ie If someone has a wide open look a game winning shot and throws up an air ball... I'd call that a choke job... lol
You mean John Starks? I never seen so many bricks being laid in a game since Dwight Howard was on this team shooting free throws.
so i am correct in what i thought the definition of "choke" meant... we were never the heavy favorite and we never squandered a large lead... again this is not what harden did.. thanks bro
let us not forget the 2011 nba finals lol. lebron averaged like 4 ppg in the 4th quarter and had a game where he had 8 points I've been a diehard that follow the nba extremely closely since 2009 and I can think of worst choke jobs already. What about 2010 lebron vs celtics? c'mon guys
