I understand the old "shooters gotta keep shooting" mentality, but my god on nights like this it really feels like he should drive more, try some midrange/post ups to get his groove going. When he's hot, have at it, but man when he's ice cold like tonight it feels like he's killing the team. Hardens shooting 29% on 16 attempts per game from 3 over his last 9 games.
When he wasn’t being triple teamed I liked to see him use the floating device he has created to great effect
His stepback middy is money. Not sure why he doesn't shoot them as much. He also gets fouled on those often.
Yes. He needs to alternate. Mix it up. The step back threes work better when driving has been established as a threat. And vice versa. Sometimes he takes 4 threes in a row. Never ends up being the best idea.
Do the Rockets need to chill with the threes? Rockets be like Let's get up as many threes as possible.
Yeah, from what I saw, every time he drove, there were 2 rotating defenders helping the main defender.
Yes. It applies to everyone on the team as well. We were jacking up so many 3s and it felt like the Game 7 from last year. Also we let a team that is missing 5 of their 6 best players hang around and we deserved to lose this game. We took them very lightly and in the NBA, any team can lose on any given night. Harden had a horrible shooting night and we got exposed of our weakness, which is not having a Center or PF with size. We must get a back up Center and couple of shooters that can knock down open shots. If not, we will be one and done in the Playoffs. We cannot afford to lose to teams like this. We already lost against Orlando, Cleveland, Dallas twice, Nets, Miami which we could have easily won
Exactly. Harden would have had about 15 assists if everyone else was hitting their shots. He was attracting the entire defense his way most of the night. Rivers and Gordon did a sh!tty job of helping him out when the deluge arrived.
Sometimes he forces the issue when his shots isnt falling and tries to be extra aggressive, you like that kind of mentality but he has to mix it up especially when it's not falling and down by 5 points and 6 minutes left on the shot clock. This game was up for grab and couldve easily won this game, but oh well onto to the next one.