This was part of the problem too. Why dribble up slowly and wait till 8 seconds on the shot clock to make your move. That is not how you beat the Warriors, especially with KD out who has turned into an excellent defender and help defender and we did not take advantage. Harden should have been going hard at Draymond as he seems he has learned some of Draymond's tendencies. Obviously Draymond would have caused a couple of turnovers/misses but Draymond would have been fouled out with 4-5 minutes left if Harden went to attack mode. We have to be more aggressive. Can't believe we didn't take advantage of them in this game with their backs against the wall. Obviously Warriors stepped up but we lost on low effort plays and bad bball IQ when those are typically our strengths.
Such bullshit. I just watched my Liverpool team, down one of the best goal scorers in the world, down their best attacking midfielder, down another quality midfielder, come back from down 3 goals to the “best club in the world” on the backs of their reserves. Newsflash: everyone is tired at this point. Everyone. If Harden gets so consistently “gassed” in the 4th quarter of big playoff games then that’s on him and his conditioning. GSW has played more mins over the last 5 years than any other team by a wide margin. Why isn’t Curry and Klay gassed? Is it just Harden? Dude just put up video game offensive numbers for an entire season but now it’s too much for us to ask him to take more than two shots in the 4th of a critical game bc he might be tired? Again? GTFO.
Our points per possession may have been higher and won the game for us if instead of some of those possessions, it ended with a Harden step back 3, floater, or free throws.
That offensive foul on CP was a killer. We were within 3 points with the ball. We loss the possession and Draymond hit a 3 at the other end. The momentum got away from us at that point. Green's feet were clearly not set.
My take is that Gordon got hot. Harden was happy to try and get him the ball. He was feeding the hot hand. He has confidence in his teammates. To me that was okay, he should have adjusted by the end of the period to do more on offense, but that is no where near the top of the things the Rockets need to correct in order to win a game like that.
Harden was seriously passive aggressive or the KD injury shook him... Either way GREAT players see an opportunity, smell blood in the water, and go for the kill. That starts with your best player. If he was on that 30 point streak his ass would be aggressive! As a supporter of his I can clearly say he is no Hakeem Olajuwon.
This sort of second guessing can always be done in a loss, though. Again, we were putting up enough points on the board. It doesn't really matter that we weren't exclusively relying on Harden for that. There are some execution things we could have done better, for sure, but the defensive side was the bigger problem.
That is my thought. If he's going to rest on offense he should put more effort on defense. The offense doing well despite harden doesn't excuse disappearing. Otherwise they should Josh Smith him so the defense has a chance.
its rigged man. and there was another one earlier in the begging where EG was called for the offensive foul, same thing. These calls are what tilt the favor in one teams direction. its a big swing. just like game 1. only good thing is KD is out. we have a real chance now.
Harden walking the ball up as if we had all the time in the world was part of the lack of aggression, lack of urgency and lack of killer mentality.
He sure uses all of that 8 seconds to get across the half court line. I'm thinking it must be deliberate on the Rockets part to slow down the pace as much as possible.
MDA should have played the long game and rested Harden 3-4 minutes to start the 4th, as he usually does.
Well yeah true. But I don't think it's by design. They'd be better if they played faster but Harden is more comfortable playing this way. Maybe conserves energy. And to be fair Durant does the same thing when he brings the ball up for the warriors
Just blame harden as usual. Forgot the fact that capela was a huge negative (standing around not boxing out, missing point blank layups) and CP3 just wasted secs off the clock dribbling around the entire game. Also forget the fact that Gordon started 0-6... The only thing that prevented this game from being a 40 point loss is Curry can't seem to buy a basket to save his life. If Curry was as hot as Klay to start the game, Harden would be the least of our problems.
Not down with 58 seconds to go, every second counts then, but Harden hasn't consistently set up the offense in the first 8 seconds in ages. It's really a shame, whenever someone is down on the floor and they just scored / missed, I pray they don't inbound / pass the ball to Harden. CP3 same thing, only Gordon will occasionally run down and try to get a quick bucket.
