He’s the 2025 Eurobasket MVP for a reason

He’s annoying as hell to play against, but the Pistons definitely missed him this year. It made sense to try and give Ivey a shot, but damn having him pestering the other team really helps.

He’s the definition of a pest, and you know he brings intensity.

I don’t understand why he can’t find a long term home. He’s been swapping teams every offseason, and every year in the playoffs, I feel like he plays winning basketball.

Yup. I’ve clowned him in the past but I’ve always respected his competitive nature.

The ease at which (some) NBA defences accept switches is baffling. They roll out the red carpet for the offences whose entire scheme is based around getting that switch. Then there is never any effort by other guys to help or switch assignment or anything, they just watch their worst defender get cooked.

Basketball is a team game. Harden has his flaws but him getting cooked on D wasn’t solely his fault alone.

I don’t think it’s all hardens fault but I’ve been hearing for years from some people on this sub hardens defense was underrated, lol. Especially the 2 years he was on the clippers and didn’t have to worry about getting targeted in the playoffs. Even just last week you had his fans try to give him credit for stopping the pistons or something when he’s fighting with mitchell over who gets to guard Ausar Thompson.

The cavs need to do a better job preventing the iso and giving him help when harden gets isod. But like Draymond said, some of them were scared of switching on and being iso’d themselves.

It was a scheme thing. Atkinson seemed to think letting Brunson take contested 2’s against Harden was a good strategy. If the coaches had told Wade to fight thru he would have done it. 

way, way too easy.

Kenny can’t be afraid to sub out Harden for Strus or Schroeder & JA with Wade.

Yeah atleast make them eat up some clock to get the switch

Dean Wade hugging OG instead of fighting through the screen every single possession was infuriating, even as a neutral fan. Insane game plan

As a Luka fan, lol both him and harden will never want to hedge and get back to their man. Too much effort

What is Harden doing while Dean Wade fights over the screen though? Do you want him to show and recover to his original man? 

They could fight through some of the non-threatening screens. But I think Kenny is gonna have to really coach these guys up because Harden has almost never been able to operate in anything except a switching scheme. I think we’re all looking at Harden being left on an island, but Brunson had the same problem. The Knicks were able to show and recover because Brunson was active as part of the team structure. 

If a guy fights over the screen, you have to help him. It’s not a one man job. The Cavs tried the show and recover tactic with Harden and it cost them late threes for that reason. 

Draymond knows first hand how that goes. Do you know how hard it is to just switch onto Steph now?

The Cavs did it in 2016 with a hobbled steph and it worked. While it yielded eh results vs the rockets, that series got steph a bit bothered and now he should be the blueprint on how to pre switch, avoid a switch, or funnel a defender when you catch a switch

The “Harden is almost 37 years old” point doesn’t really fly because 28 year old Harden would have gotten bullied on defense just as bad

37 or not Harden has always been non-existent on defense. Like a quote one of the announcers said “if you’re on harden then you’re one on nobody because he doesn’t guard his shadow”

Harden couldn’t get one stop out of all those buckets Brunson got on him in the 4th. At that point it’s him and the coach’s fault for letting it go for like 5 possessions in a row of Brunson just running over him.

The holding of the timeouts when they were blowing a 20 point lead was the biggest one for me. Spo would have emptied that clip. Tf he holding unto them for? Game 8

I had thought it odd that Harden was just being watched by his teammates while he was stuck in iso with Brunson. Then also they give Harden the ball on offense and do the same thing. I actually feel bad for Harden because his guys are just sitting there watching him play 1v9. Even Mitchell looks to give Harden the ball at the end of regulation and sit out on the 3pt line idly. This dude is 37 years old

I loved him in Toronto. Not sure why he gets traded away so often. He’s one of the best bench PG in the league.

That shit was so disgusting in the Denver series. Jokic and Murray playing at like 30% with minutes left in a close game because they were incredibly gassed and that dumbass adelman did nothing

You’re totally correct here, but I want to add that coaches also get mentally stressed and break under pressure. Atkinson looks like he’s been run over.

Harden is not capable of doing what Steph does, you need a very high motor to show high and then run back to recover to the sceener

Absolutely true but how are you guys going to live and die by a 36yo harden defending 1v1. Timeout or not, a former DPOY on the team and the rest of the younger cavs HAVE to step up. Just stupid to let it happen over and over

I think you missed the point…

I wish

stfu

Celtics fan try not to call a black man an animal challenge: impossible

He will go out there run around & try hard while going 1-10 or whatever tf he was & getting scored on & they’ll say some, “he looked like he was trying!”

All his effort led to nothing.

But you have to admit some kind of adjustment was needed. The Cavs looked gassed and what they had out there was getting smoked. Put Schroder in just to get a different energy on the floor and spell Harden is all he’s saying.

redditors watch the clip before they post some bs challenge: impossible

…. What?

i think there’s a little of both. Draymond is still playing today so he still knows what he’s looking at when he watches a game. as opposed to chuck or shaq or whatever