Whoa whoa whoa. Say what you will about Harden but you leave sweet baby Chandler out of this. Serial gambler...pshaw!
i bet this dude zowe has a screen saver of a certain houston point guard we won't name! what a hater he is. Harden plays excellent defense. You'll never see a Mason hit 4 threes in a row against us. we have a lot of serial gamblers on D.
I'm not surprised that Harden had a lot of bad habits from his Thunder days. The Thunder perennially underachive on defense but are okay because their offense is just otherworldly. Plus they have some of the most athletic players in the NBA. It's probably why Brooks keep playing Perkins despite being one of the worst offensive player in the NBA. I hope he can work on it in the offseason. But probably difficult to concentrate mid-season especially due to his workload.
Again, we're the youngest team in the NBA that has a starting 5 that hasn't even completed an entire season playing together. Of course their defense will be one of the last things that becomes their strength.
ehh...I actually agree that Harden has crapy defense but at least I see effort from him on that end. More than I can say about some other so called superstars
Harden needs to work on a lot of things this offseason(or even this year with a pretty breezy remaining schedule) but the gambling pays off in the long run. Teams that are top ranked in steals are usually ranked pretty low in defense because those gambles can lead to easy buckets. Thankfully those steals lead to even easier buckets for us. It's really the only way the Rockets can win at this time.
Zach isn't wrong. Parsons has been a serial gambler all season long - pretty much all our perimeter defenders are gamblers to a certain extent. You'll see about 1-2 possessions a game where Parsons gambles, fails, loses his man. Part of the reason people are criticizing Parsons' defense this year. Not that big a failing or problem imo.
This bothers me some, but not very much, because Harden can choose to step it up on defense when it is needed.
Zack Lowe sucks. Glad I could clear that up! James needs to improve his defense, but he does not "suck" at it. That's rediculous. Not to pick on the guy, who I liked while we had him, but Steve Novak's defense sucks. Saying his D sucks would be an accurate statement. Saying the same thing about Harden is simply stupid.
I don't understand what he is saying about Delfino and Parsons. Delfino is solid and has shown flashes of being great (against Gay) while Parsons is generally known around the league as being an above average stopper.
Just as the whole "3 pointer" thing, the Rockets seem to make a concerted effort to play the passing lanes this year compared to any past years. And Parsons has certainly went from a Courtney Lee style, stay in front of your guy defense to a gambling defense that Lin or Lowry likes to do. My only guess is that (A) it plays into their tempo for trying to create fast break opportunities and (B) they lack the personnel to play defense straight up in the vein of Hakeem/Yao's Rockets.
He is okay. I don't think Parsons is any worse at gambling than Lin or Delfino. Harden does gamble... and there is a right way to do it (Wade) and a wrong way (Iverson), but Harden needs to improve and pick his spots.
Their team defense is bad, they don't know where the other defenders on the floor will be and don't know if their teammates will switch. It causes gambles... Also I am sure pace is part of it as well.
