I doubt this is a well kept secret among the ways to gameplan for Harden. This is how you guard a good amount of scorers. You pressure them all game until they’re worn out.

Yeah, they will run the offense through Mitchell next game. Simple adjustment

“Harden, now aware of how much he dribbles, dribbles 10% less, scores 114 in win”

The headline after game 2

Honestly yes. They did in the Pistons series but randomly reverted in game 6. Maybe hearing an opposing coach say it out loud will make them stick with it.

Harden suddenly turns into an elite offball shooter after this comment

That’s literally what he said in the quote. Your comment has the exact same information that the post itself has lmfao

Especially with him playing so many damn minutes these playoffs

Kerr pretty notoriously leaves his best defender on an island with help showing behind and wants the best player to try and beat them as a scorer. The help is usually trying to stop initial move and recover but rarely are they trying to over help or blitz. He’ll definitely mix it up if the series calls for it but that’s his opening game plan for most teams.

Harden is a generational talent and one of the best players ever with the ball in his hands but I do recall someone publicly on the Warriors say he was easy to gameplan against. Harden has definitely put up numbers on Warriors at times but his need to be on ball is probably why his overall playoff success isn’t there. I vividly remember being at a playoff game with Steph out injured and they sent the most obvious blitz at the end of the game to win it.

And now he’s 36 playing 40+ minutes a game watching his costar defer to him when he’s BEGGING to be the 2nd or 3rd option

Harden and adjustments go together like peanut butter and fried flounder: they don’t

*harden crossing his arms*

hmph!

So take him out when you’re up 20 damnit 

For real lol, it’s like Brown saying the Knicks were attacking Harden. They know. If they didn’t know when every fan in MSG knew, they’ll never know

yeah i got like halfway thru the first quarter and he alread had 7 dribbles, no way he had only 4 the rest of the game

I watch that whole quarter recently, he didn’t even touch the ball for the first three minutes of the quarter.

I think the original Klay dribbles count was only on plays that resulted in made FGs by him, not the total number of dribbles he took in the whole game, which was a much higher number.

still, Klay scored 60 pts on less dribbles on the made FGs than Harden dribbles on a single FG.

How dare you state facts here.

I think the point is on the points and plays he did convert he did dribble very little once he got the ball.

Not missed field goals or moving he ball on offense.

Or am I missing something?

I don’t think anyone thought that was how many dribbles he took ALL game. At least I don’t think they should have. The point was how many dribbles he took WHILE scoring those 60 points. Because most of them were catch and shoot. It would be weird to count the times he caught the ball, dribbled, and then passed to someone else.

What?

And why the Spurs beung able to switch to by-committee scoring prowess might save them when Wemby isn’t channeling his inner Wilt.

The full court doubling is what has been fucking with SGA in both the Lakers and Spurs series. Totally different than last post-season in that regard. Everyone watching tonight should take notice of how many players are focusing on SGA. Lakers couldn’t stop anyone else because they sold so hard on SGA, Spurs seem good enough to do it and still disrupt rest of the team. Fuck I’m nervous about tonight lol. 

The NBA has changed and you need at least 5, preferably 6 or 7, playable guys between 6’4” and 6’8” who can pressure the ball, switch 1-4, make 3s, and blow by close-outs. Thats in addition to your PG, center, and backup center. You also need three guys who can handle the ball so they don’t wear out so quickly.

Sixers had 3.5, Knicks have 5 or 6. Thunder and Spurs each have 7.

This is what Curry trains for and if there’s a primary defender on him, it’s likely the defender wears out before Curry does.

Coaching staff have been doing this to Harden since 2014

Yeah that’s a huge adjustment

It baffles me that if Brown had this in mind, it took him until halfway through the first round of the playoffs to implement a counter for when teams do it to Brunson

If mike brown takes the Knicks to the finals by playing through KAT after being slandered all year for his KAT schemes im laughing my ass off tbh

maybe I am delusional but seeing Hardens and CP3’s clutch struggles in their careers, I wonder if LeBron probably just beats them in 2018 had they made the finals.

Dude was a Harden hamstring injury away from being completely wrong.

They still had to win the game and the finals. Quite the conjecture.

I dont really get why people think the team with 2 all time playoff chokers was going to hold a lead vs a team that always played their best with their backs against the wall

CP3 has blown 5 2-0 series leads in his career

What makes you think he’s closing a series out? Literally the next year the rockets feel flat and the Warriors beat them in the end of game 5 and 6 without KD

Are we really gonna ignore that harden had a absolutely terrible series? 40% from the field 24% from 3

That’s a funny way of saying, “he was completely right.”

Bro what they had a whole series to play after that too.

Post/Off ball game where he can draw attention or use himself as bait to set other players up. Basically what Shai is doing

It’s easier to gameplan against a team where you know 90% of the offense originate from one single player, no matter how good that player is. Look at the most notable examples:

All LeBron’s rings happens when he had an all star second scorer (Wade/Kyrie/AD), when he’s on his own he could win playoff series but not rings.

Harden’s best year was in 2018 when he had another floor general in CP3. Then he fell short every year when he’s the sole focal point on offense.

Luka still don’t have rings.

There’s just a ceiling to the heliocentric style offense. You can get very good regular season record and decend Playoff runs with it, but as Kobe said, this is not championship strategy.

In 4 of the 5 championship runs, Kobe had a significantly higher PER in the playoffs vs the regular season.

Harden has dropped off every single year in the playoffs except in brooklyn 

Shaq is one thing but Pau was not really some superstar. Absolutely amazing all star second option, which every superstar needs to win a championship, but not a superstar like Shaq. Name one player who has won without an all star teammate. 

Kobe took a lot of difficult shots but he was usually above league efficiency until his last few years and injuries. Harden has had great teams as well, nobody wins alone.

Relax. Watch the whole video first, it’s an ESPN interview with Rachel Nichols, Kobe and TMac. It’s not a dig at Harden.

Sorry for being pedantic and off topic but I had to look this up because ‘double digit bottles’ sounded insane. Double digit shots. Still doesn’t make any sense to me how people can do that to their bodies:

“(The) man could sit up here and go out,” Robert Covington, who played with Harden on the Rockets for the 2013-14 season, said recently on the Run Your Race podcast. “James be out all night, till four, five in the morning, and that man up at seven o’clock working out … and I’m talking about drinking heavy. We’re not talking about, like, (what) we here sipping right now. We’re talking about 10, 12, 13, 15 shots. Bottles, like, bottles. Great time. And he going to go home, going to have that little power nap and he’ll be in that gym.”

I’m just a fan of the game, but I’ll admit that for me, his play in isolation was a thing of beauty. Having someone on an island, dance and then pull up from 28 feet. It’s a ridiculous shot. It’s a bad shot, and he made a living off it.

Tbh, I kind of wish that Morey didn’t change his style because the OKC version of Harden, would’ve been great. He had a middy, he could play off-ball with the catch and shoot, and he was still a good driver, while facilitating.

Strippers to Harden are like the sun to superman. 

That very well could have been the GM’s directive. You have the keys on offense, we will cover you on defense. The OKC Harden played defense.

Yeah no shit. He was their offensive engine, not defensive.

i agree typically, but not the in the beginning of a series.

Imagine Steve Kerr spilling this back in 2018. Dantoni would’ve made an adjustment and that would’ve killed the warriors plan (that Draymond confirmed years after was exactly what brown was talking about)

Have Mobley bring it up. That’s what we did against at the Pistons.

How is he “exposing the playbook?” Do you think the Cavs were somehow unaware that the Knicks were guarding Harden full court?

Harden not being able to stop Brunson is not his fault, asking him to do it is just going to lead to failure. Atkinson should’ve adjusted, get him off the floor, doubling Brunson, whatever.

Never taken care of his body? Harden barely misses games other than his hamstring injuries on the Nets that carried over to the Sixers, playing 35 MPG every year and still putting up good numbers at his age. Certainly no superstar anymore, but insane longevity and one of the 3 dudes left from his draft class.

wait yall the ones who said Mitchell needs to play less on-the-ball but now yall wanted him to take over the ball?

100% agree