crazy that after the third time brunson cooked harden atkinson STILL didn’t call a timeout or even an adjustment

Where was Strus during all that?

36 year old Harden is at 40 minutes.

Atkinson lost us this game 100%

Insane from Kenny to not take him off Brunson Brunson absolutely cooked him

This. Same play 6+ possessions in a row. No time out. We threw this game away. I blame Kenny.

I’m loving having Harden on our team but if he’s cold on the offensive end and being picked on on D, put him on the bench. We are deep. Such a shame to lose the ability to steal home court advantage in game 1 like this.

I’m pissed.

watched brunson torch him for an entire quarter. and then on offense he trots down and throws up some bricks and even an airball. how he stayed in the game is beyond me. insane

I would be so pissed at the coaches if I was Donovan. Like sit Harden and put in anyone else, fuck his feelings

He left that man to fucking DIE out there.

he’s asleep for most of the game, it’s past his bedtime

Why did they run absolutely nothing for Mitchell? This entire team was built on the assumption that he could steady their offense in big moments and did he even touch the ball in OT???

Yeah wtf was that about. He just let him get cooked over and over and over and over. Finally put Struss in for OT.

Awful coaching, and awful personal defense from Harden

cavs coach def checked out mentally 15 minutes ago

Should legit get fired right now. I do not care. I have never seen a worse collapse than that

I literally came to check reddit just to confirm my thoughts. Absolutely awful performance but Atkinson has to be the one to pull the plug on it

If they had pulled Harden at any point during that run, Cavs are probably winning game 1. Literally anyone on the Cavs team would have played better defense. Also that probably allows Mitchell to actually get the ball too during the 4th and OT.

This is the opposite of when harden was benched the entire 4th quarter of that insane rockets comeback win in 2015 lol. But same in the sense that harden sucks

All that for him to shoot 30%.

Bro just said he was happy with their performance.

Run him out of town

He doesn’t have the balls to bench the coach killer

Kenny grew up as a die-hard Knicks fan and only realized he was the opposing coach once the lead was cut to 5 pts.

Why do that when harden can dribble for 12 seconds and jack a three?

Yeah Richard Jefferson pointed it out when he had 5 fouls. Crazy

And Brunson was playing with 5 fouls too

That’s kinda what everyone does in playoff basketball

that’s why teams avoid having bad defenders

Shades of the Hawks hunting Brunson in games 2 and 3

Adjustments will be made

not to be confused with the other dwade

You can’t put Dean Wade in when Donovan Mitchell refuses to take more than 1 shot while the lead is crumbling. As bad as harden was on defense he at least was trying to get it back. Mitchell might as well not have been on the court, and he took only one additional shot in OT. He completely ghosted.

if there is fuck trae young, there should be we love james harden chant in the garden

Even more frustrating because Wade was actually shooting well for the first time this playoffs.

And the haters come out on top every time

man im usually a defender of him but i can’t recall a time where one player individually directly contributed towards a team losing more than i just watched tonight lol. couldn’t hit a shot to save his life and getting hunted relentlessly. truly insane to watch

More of a civil constant ass whooping because the haters have not one single time been proven wrong.

Harden stans need to logout and touch grass for awhile after this game for their mental health.

I like James Harden but man that was hard to watch. I dont think im a fan or hater just realistic about what was displayed.

A 21 point lead fueled by an attacking DM. Followed by a Harden managed offense that just look bad.

He threw up some shots and the energy just looked off

The haters said he couldn’t do it. And they were correct. Honestly great call from the haters.

Where were you when Booty Brunson put up all dat azz on harden?

Dean Wade? Yeah he might outplay Harden right now.

Lol theres certain weirdo demographic on this sub that greatly overrate harden and claim he’s not a playoff choker/disappointment.

genuinely if they had even deanwade in the game for him cavs win

Biggest choker in basketball history, history will be very unkind to him.

Dang who’s saying harden is as good as Wade? That’s just crazy lol

You can sub out james harden during that time too. The rockets game 6 comeback vs clippers in 2015 when they were 19 in the 4th came when harden was on the bench and josh smith (who had the most embarrassing stint in detroit) and corey brewer led the comeback

I miss those days when this sub called him James Haren. If this was 2016 that would be every comment.

If you roll them over all the way to the end of the year you can get a nice cash out of 75% of their value, i think that’s his strategy here. Good financial planning tbh

On the flip side, the challenge he did use earlier in the game was the most impactful I’ve ever seen. It changed what would easily have been a flagrant on Allen to an offensive foul by KAT.

Not even sure it’s an effort thing, I think he’s just old and gassed and they are hunting and exposing him every play

He was bad in his prime of course he’s gonna be bad now that he’s old and chubby

He shoulda subbed himself in, ain’t no way the Knicks gameplanned for that

There’s not being known for defense.. then there is this…

well he’s known for his offense but that’s also not there lmao

Believe it or not people on this sub were using it as a positive talking point to prop him up in the pistons series because they had to find a way to glaze him and he was ass offensively

I’d argue he’s very known for his defense. I think he trained in the ‘blow-by’ style of defense combined with a little of the ‘traffic cone’ technique

Exactly and it hurts to see as bad as he has even been on offense too and not just defense.

I have absolutely zero doubt that the Cavs win this game if they bench harden midway through the fourth

Brunson searched him out like Freddy Krueger in a kids dream

we didn’t fight through a single screen on the switch attempt until strus came in with like 2 minutes left in overtime.. i couldn’t imagine why we just let them have the switch without any effort every single play, and harden was an actual traffic cone out there. worst defensive stretch i ever remember seeing out of a player and our team did nothing to fix it. no timeout, no help, just harden out there to die.

Cocaine

This comment says it all. Harden was gassed. Turnstyle on D and throwing up bricks on O. He should have been subbed for Strus or literally anyone else during that run.

The ball has to be in Donovan’s hands there at the end of regulation. I didn’t understand why they didn’t call a TO to get Donovan a clean look. If he passed to Merrill, I can live with it. Made no sense there to have Harden making the decisions.

I can’t believe the Cavs are going to extend this dude

Yeah I hate harden but this was more brunson going nuclear than harden imploding. Sone of those early bank shots were wild.

They just conceded it every possession as if they were totally ok with it 😂

benchh him for wade and theyre doing post game media right now after a win