Olajuwon and Harden in the same sentence is...

It’s coaching
The Rockets championship teams didn’t play this dumb in critical moments
They stepped up

There’s lots of ball movement

I do feel Harden is taking too many shots that he’s getting tired . Step backs threes are great when they go in, but are long rebounds usually to the other team when they don’t go in

Dreams baseline and paint moves are efficient and don’t cause these long rebounds that count for the other teams fast breaks

 

Nobody is tearing down Dream. Just pointing out both players are human--not myths or machines--and comparing the two at this stage is not an apples to apples thing with the exception that both were severely doubted by the NBA cognoscenti during their career. We know how Dream responded. We'll see how Harden responds.

 

The NBA was a much different animal back then. Much more physical and hand-checking was apart of the game which made it harder on the offensive end. You can't touch players today. Hakeem came through in that era of the league and BEASTED. Took the team to the finals and won the damn thing twice.

I like Harden. But he's no Hakeem. Rings, Ernie. Rings. People can give all the excuses they want but Harden hasn't shown us the killer instinct mentality of an Hakeem. Dream would demand the ball down low in clutch moments and take over games down the stretch. "Give me the ball and get the fk out the way."

 

Dirk, Jordan, Lebron, Durant...basically everyone is a choker until they win a championship.

Only guys that aren't chokers are guys with low expectations. For example, if Portland loses to the Warriors no one will call them chokers because no one expected them to beat the Warriors or even have a chance at a championship.

 

You could argue we were robbed as well last year and this year. Either way the result was the same we couldn’t get past the Sonics just as can’t get past the Warriors. If people are gonna claim the refs do t matter then they don’t matter back then either.

 

How about wait for Harden's career to finish before overreacting?