I decided to crunch some numbers on Harden's performance in games where he has faced elimination. Let me share my findings with you. career 24.7 pts on 42/38/84 shooting 4.9 reb 5.4 ast 4.6 TO 2.6 stl at home 22 pts on 38/40/73 shooting 5.7 reb 6.0 ast 4.0 TO 3.0 stl since becoming a rocket 21 pts on 38/38/86 shooting 5.2 reb 5.8 ast 5.8 TO 2.6 stl did not look at minutes or blocks, if anyone wants to contribute, feel free Observations: -The most troubling stats are the overall FG% and the TOs. - 38+% three point shooting is fine by me. It's the 2s that are bringing his overall FG% down. Both at home and as a rocket, harden is shooting better from 3 than from 2 (under 40%). -GOOD NEWS: Harden is shooting 59% on 2s this series. He shot 56% on 2s vs the Thunder. He has shot 50% or better from 2 in 8 of 10 playoff games this season. -The D'Antoni spread offense gets Harden way more 1v1 drives than in previous seasons. -No matter which set of stats you look at, Harden avged over 2.5 steals per game. That goes a significant way toward balancing out the high TOs, especially at home where Harden has averaged 6 assists and 3 steals to 4 turnovers. -Since becoming a rocket, Harden has never shot less than 8 free throws in an elimination game (averaging 10.7) and he has shot 86% on them.
He has to be aggressive early. F all that Magic Johnson crap, sound fundamental ball. If I see him do another behind the back pass at the 3 for a turnover I might start a thread about it, and y'all don't want none of that trust me. If he's balling out the other dudes will fall in line, if he's trying to get them all involved yawn,yadA,yawn and they struggle then it becomes forced instead of letting it start and end... naturally. I wish I had Rudy T's "run it again" raspy voice on loop right now.
How many elimination games has he played in ? I'm only asking because I remember he did have 13 TO's vs the Warriors . That's a number high enough to push his average way up depending on the number of games .
What i'm wondering is where did 12-15 assists Harden go? He's basically been Harden who played for McHale and the OT last game was exactly what Harden under McHale would have done.
I wouldn't be surprised if Pop puts Simmons on him from the first quarter in the next game. He trusts his bench that much - D'Antoni doesn't. This will be key to the series - fresh legs albeit with less talent vs. weary talented legs.
Here's a crazy correlation I uncovered - Harden has more assists when the Rockets hit open shots. Rockets open shot shooting percentage - particularly on 3's, has been lousy in the 3 losses to SA. This is due to SA's open shot defense.
Yeah his assists have gone down and that's really to be expected because of how both okc and Sas has defended the 3 ball where Harden gets so many assists from. On top of that, they are closing out so hard that often times it turns into a hockey assist with an extra pass.
I give us 50 50 chance to extend the series and another 30% percent to win game 7. Best bet. Spurs are still the favorites.
But really it has to do with the spurs & Thunders open shot defense. Rockets are shooting only in the high 30's when open in the playoffs as opposed to the low 40's during the regular season.
Bad shooting has been a factor for sure also. But that could be due to exhaustion from short rotation and intensity along with the expectation of good closeout defense resulting in a quicker shot than a natural rhythm.
I don't think that's an unpopular opinion, and I totally agree with u. he's taking almost 11 threes a game in these playoffs while shooting 28% from beyond the arc...I'd like to see him bring that number down to 6 or 7 a game and substitute some of those off the dribble bricks from deep with a few midrangers that he can actually make at a pretty good rate
