the lakers odds might be wrong. they have the lakers as -550 for the portland series, the rockets series, and the denver series. there's basically no chance that's right. i remember looking last year and i think it said -400 for our series so i'm guessing portland odds are right and us and denver are wrong. -200 is not technically a toss-up, but something being 2/3 likely is not something you are betting your life savings on. we would have probably won with a better performance from harden (or aldridge playing the 2 best games of his career), but they aren't going to make a documentary about what a monumental upset it was. and it's extremely unlikely we're beating the spurs, thunder, and heat all in a row.
then i'll call it simplistic. he has gone from playing with dependent players who needed him to do everything to a team with 2 of the best scorers/shooters in the game along with maybe the best spot up shooter in the game. the court is way more open, making it much less necessary to dribble for a long time before determining if there is an opening or to determine how best to set up the defense to get a teammate open. you can also throw a pass to those other 3 guys with a defender close to them and they can still get off the shot so you can throw a lot of early passes just by noticing the defense a little out of place (whereas people like tucker/ariza/ego/etc would not get a shot off and probably just throw it back to harden). i have noticed this a lot. as for passing more, again the options are better so of course the score vs pass balance has shifted. it's possible harden has shifted something about his game, but the vast majority of any changes can be explained by his teammates.
Riddle me this. How does a guy that shoots over 50 percent for behind the arc be slightly below average at the free throw line?
yeah that’s weird about Harris. Maybe it’s because he’s used to jumping on his shots? He seems to jump higher on his 3s than other people do
Durant is out again against the clippers. Harden can really get into the mvp consideration if he can beat the Suns, lakers and clippers as the main guy . Huge game for him tomorrow night
Their guys seems to have more autonomy in that offense, and I agree with it. Hardens also passing it way more, which is reflected in his drastic drop in usage rate (I understand that usage rate tracks possessions ending in a FGA, FTA, or TO). It also helps A LOT when he’s passing to way better offensive players than we ever had here. Even with CP3 and Russ here, Harden was registering at least a 36% or so usage rate. This is what I see watching their offense and it’s just more effective. I really think that their guys, even role players, continue actions where they catch it from Harden, don’t have the shot, and then go into the next option. You may disagree and I can’t really get push back other than giving you my impressions based on my eye test and Harden’s usage rate. Hopefully Zach Lowe writes about this or something LOL.
Yea but the autonomy is like.....straight line drives or maybe like pull up twos? I feel like we did that here too? Like they can bleed efficiency in those areas because they have 3 superstar players. I will have to go and look at more of their games but for the most part, I still just see Harden controlling things out there.
What I am saying is please go back to elementary school and learn to read. You win for the worst reading comp on this forum, by far, you get a gold star for that. I am guessing you failed every standardized test in school huh.
Which was 2nd and 1st on a team where almost 8 people avg double digits. He was still their best player and the top scorer only avg Ike 17 a night.
Cmon the year before that 39 yrs old derek fisher put the clamps down on harden in the clutch....that okc series was very winnable were it not for the harden choke
That San Antonio team was obviously still good, not just winning it all but the 62 wins. I developed the opinion that matchup wise that Rockets team could have beaten any of the top teams that year but since Leonard won a ring in Toronto I've gained more respect for him as a player and his San Antonio accomplishments and those Spurs. I have been saying that Rockets team had a real shot so long I did forget why I was saying it
The revisionist history of Harden losing to inferior teams is just not true Him being basically solely responsible for the losses is not true. Question: On those Harden "choke jobs" Who were the second best players on the Rockets in those games and what were their stats?? Rocket River
