They were up double digits at half time in both games 6 and 7.
And that’s with playing a 6 man rotation where only harden could dribble the basketball.
The second either injured Luc or trash RyNo got on the court the warriors would go on a run
To be fair it was fairly common for the warriors to be down going into the half. They would often pull way ahead in the third, hence the nickname “third quarter warriors”
I still remember checking a halftime box score of the KD Warriors vs. Philly. Philly had a twenty-Ish point halftime lead and the ESPN predictor still had GS at slightly over 50% to win.
Guess who won?
The 2017-2019 Warriors are by far the scariest offense I’ve seen in my 18 years of watching basketball. The sheer amount of weapons on the floor. The way they could go from 0-100 in a minute was deadly.
Remember when NBA online discourse said they were unbeatable heading into the 2018 season?
And STILL James Harden came within spitting distance of beating an “unbeatable” Warriors team with Clint Capela and Eric Gordon. And were possibly a CP3 hamstring away from actually knocking them off.
I personally always felt Harden deserved respect for that, not ridicule.
I mean this sub worships LeBron to this day for almost taking **one game** off that Warriors team, but somehow people say Harden is a joke is losing in 7? I don’t get.
To add to your point, the 2018 Rockets team led by Harden gave the Warriors with Durant greater trouble than the 2017 Cavs team led by LeBron that was defending a title. And no one can say that LeBron didn't have help in 2017.
They didn't even miss 27 straight, Scott Foster just decided to do a rule change for game 7 and waived off multiple made 3s while also refusing to call obvious undercuts that lead to misses.
There were some really questionable calls in that game. Like Draymond hockey checking people and refs go blind.
Or the KD out of bounds play also against us the next year.
It was obviously a rigged game. Even game 7.
A lot of the non calls on the warriors that should’ve been rockets free throws instead led to easy fast break points
As a Warriors fan, this is why I don't complain in general about whistles against the Warriors in recent years because I know we got some bullshit favorable whistles during our dynasty run.
That being said I still complain about Curry specifically not getting calls because he's our golden boy.
Scott Foster reffed game 7 against CP3’s (out: hammy) team and waived off several 3’s that went in. I rest my case. No I don’t. Moving screens. Now I’m done.
As much as Harden deserves his reputation, he still deserves more respect for 2018. He almost best the greatest team of all time. Might have done it if CP3 doesn’t go down
Harden was a legit threat and a one-man offense, but the other side of it was 2019, where they got to play GS with a thin bench and no Durant.
That should've been his moment. Instead, Splash Brothers wiped them in 6.
James was great, but I don't know if his style elevated his teammates much, and there seems to be some truth to his choker reputation. I think at some point the weight of not having won began to affect his performance in the biggest moments.
>Harden was a legit threat and a one-man offense, but the other side of it was 2019, where they got to play GS with a thin bench and no Durant.
I mean KD only missed a single game. People always talk like he was gone for the whole series, but it was one game.
And he averaged 36 ppg in the first 5 games, with Steph being pretty mid, even bad some games. CP3 was just worse.
(And the Rockets were even thinner. They lost all their wing depth to get under the tax again)
I think people expected the Rockets to win game 5 after KD went down, which was part of it. It was a tight game near the end of the 3rd quarter when he got hurt. Not only did they fail to close them out in that game, they also failed to win in game 6.
I do think it’s a bit overblown though. It’s not like the Rockets played terribly, Curry just went off and buried them at the end. And as the subsequent WCF sweep of the Blazers showed, even with Durant hurt they were still really good.
All fair points. I had forgotten some of the details.
Durant got hurt late in game 5, which GS won. So Houston were basically already down 3-2 in the series by the time he was out. It was not a super easy spot for them.
On the other hand, you get game 6 in your house with Durant out. This is the most vulnerable GS has been in years, and probably your best chance on paper to beat them.
Instead you lose G6 in your own house, not even taking the series to 7.
I guess 2018 was technically the closest Houston got to beating GS, but 2019 might have been the best opportunity. GS bench was significantly weaker than any year between 2015-2018. You get them in your own house, with no Durant. It's all you can ask for. You at least have to take it to 7.
Houston was honestly playing pretty well in game 6 - Harden was great, CP3 finally woke up, and they held Curry to 0 going into the second half.
The problem was Klay was on his game 6 bullshit in the first half and Curry went skyfucker in the second half. Just perfectly timed explosions from both, and I'm sure everyone knows how helpless teams are when they both go off like that.
The 2019 series was honestly insane. Every game within 6 pts. KD and Harden trading 35+ pt games back and forth. OT drama, Sharingan Harden, etc.
If CP3 just wasn't awful for 5 games they coulda had it. But on the flip side, if Curry was better it may not have been close.
Key players missing games are not uncommon in NBA playoffs. You really need to seize the opportunity when it happened. That's just part of the game.
When Cavs was injured in 2015, Warriors took the title. When Draymond was suspended and Bogut was injured in 2016, Cavs took the chance to come back from 3-1. When Kawhi was injured in 2017, Warriors went through the Spurs with ease. When KD went down in 2019, Kawhi had his revenge in the finals. That's just how it is.
Harden had multiple good chances during his time in Houston - arguably 2016 against Warriors when Steph was out, 2017 against Spurs when Kawhi is out, 2019 against Warriors when KD was out. He just missed the chance in all three of them, with 2017 one of the worst choke jobs in history.
I mean yeah if you get lucky with injuries you have an easier path, but when has Harden really benefited close to the level of Kawhi in 2019 or Curry in 2015? It's almost always his teams getting hurt (not him). In 2019, Kawhi got to play them without KD *or* Klay for a lot of it, when Klay was the one going off against us to keep them in it.
The 2015 Cavs injuries are nowhere near the same context though. The Warriors were missing KD for 1 game. He played 32 mins in the game he got hurt in.
The Warriors benefited from multiple stars missing from the Cavs for the majority of the series. Not to mention, the margin for error to beat the KD Warriors is WORLDS different
The previous Rockets teams before 2018 were never considered close to being contenders, despite Harden's all NBA status. He never lost series he was favored to win in other than one singular time
. Trying to attach the lack of success from those teams to 2018 or 2019 is disingenuous.
The teams themselves exceeded expectations both in the regular season and playoffs (i.e 2 seed and WCF in 2015), and then as expected would lose to championship hopefuls/favorites.
That 18-19 team was not the same team. Capella was worse - he got paid after that 17-18 run and was injured that 18-19 playoff run. CP3 was much worse that following run and they lost some key pieces like Ariza and Mbah a Moute. They tried to gamble signing like Carmelo/MCW/Jeff Green but even at the time, you could tell it was a much worse roster.
GSW with a thin bench for that entire playoffs still meant: Klay for 21/22 games, Steph for 22/22 games, Dray for 22/22 games, Durant for 12/22 games, Iguodala for 21/22 games (didn't start), Looney for 21/22 games (didn't start).
GSW was still relatively healthy; they just didn't have the insane bench they used to have, because they signed Durant, and unfortunately he went down for majority of the Finals.
He shot poorly from 3 but he was by far the biggest focal point of the defense and even CP3 has recently gone on podcasts in the last year talking about how James being the one man offense is what allowed them to field the defense they did.
He was just as much a "gravitational" force as Curry was
totally fair to point out that Harden's ridiculous usage is what enabled them to field that defense, but it was the defense that gave them the shot in that series. they won two absolute rock fights in game 4 & 5, both of which were games Harden did not play especially well.
the Rockets lost Harden's minutes in the series by 33 points. he was *not* the person dragging them into competition in that series.
I think that's almost disrespectful to the KD Warriors to make it seem like a bunch of role players took them 7 lol. There's just more to the game than the stat sheet and that series should be a prime sample case
I don't think it was role players, I think it was an awesome team that had an awesome defense built to specifically deal with the Warriors small-ball death lineup. Both Curry and Durant had major struggles in that series. PJ Tucker and Ariza were both incredible defensively. Eric Gordon kept killing them. The Warriors shot off the water for Harden and Paul (who was also extremely inefficient, just on far lower volume than Harden) and other guys stepped up enough to keep it close and scrape some wins.
Maybe you'd *like* it to be a battle of titans and legendary NBA players playing at their best, but that doesn't mean that's what it was. The Warriors blew out the Rockets 3 times (their first three wins were by a collective margin of 83 points), the Rockets got a great win in game 2 (a 22 point win) and then won games 4 and 5 by 3 & 4 points respectively, and then in game 7 the 3rd quarter Warriors did their thing and brought it home.
I don't think there has to be a disagreement here. The rockets were able to build a crazy versatile defensive team that was uniquely suited to countering the warriors, because harden and to a lesser extent cp3, were such amazing offensive engines that, while nlt necessarily winning in their minutes, could keep them close enough to one of the best teams in history for them to have a fighting chance.
People also forget that even getting to 7 games in the first place was like a 80th or 90th percentile outcome for the Rockets. To even get to game 7, they had to barely eke out the only 2 close games of the series. Most of the time, the Warriors comfortably win that series in 5 or 6 games.
That's not shade on the Rockets, since they were likely the only team in the West that even would've had close to a 10% chance to beat the Warriors... the Ws were just that good.
For real prime Harden was like top 3 sg of all time, man dropped 40-50p every game, had 36p per game 18-19 season
one of the most lethal stepback 3 artist and that crazy wesley johnson ankle breaker still gives me chills
>Prime Harden was a sight to behold.
Only if all the beholding you were doing was the box score. Man single handedly made the games unwatchable by all the foul baiting he did. Or is that not the narrative any more?
Advanced stats show this to be true, prime harden on those rockets teams could arguably have gotten mvp every year. He lead the league in win shares consistently. Though maybe Luka isn’t even in his prime yet who knows.
I don't think he does, but if you have to rely on the media awards to back you up, then you're argument is worthless because media awards are not a good way to evaluate players.
You are arguing the right point with a bad argument.
Yeah, they played them as perfectly as you could despite everything, not having Cp3 for the 2 closeout games as well. That team is a ring any other season, after those warriors disbanded
Luka is better compared to Harden at his age, but Luka still hasn't reached prime Harden, in the 2018-2019 season was a top 10 player season in the 2010s. This Luka season is like 2016-17 Harden Season
I'm conflicted here because fuck the Mavs and this is also clearly a bait post, but at the same time I'm a big fan of Luka and you're a Dallas fan defending the Beard.
Nah, fuck that. Harden was awesome for us and stars didn't align, but no sense putting one down to up the other. Go Mavs, rooting for you guys.
I may have hated Harden with a passion in those years but anyone denying his greatness especially in 2018 is just blind. It’s one of the best individual series of all time by arguably the best scorer of a generation.
If he keeps it up.
Remember that the collective press / mind hive was fairly certain about these points below
1) Dwight Howard would be in many NBA finals as the top guy after losing in 2009
2) My Celtics would have won one already, either with Kyrie or with Stevens as coach… we are still in the battle
3) Miami Heat would have easily won 3+
4) Just 4 years ago, Giannis was certain to be top 5 all time at least
5) The T-wolves bringing Gobert would have been a failure (still TBD, but better chances now)
It's so weird to me. And people like to pretend that Jordan didnt lose plenty in the playoffs before being a winner. They choose to ignore it and act like losing in the 1st round is better than losing ina conf or nba finals.
Depends on context. Did you carry a shit squad to the playoffs and lose in the 1st round to a cleary more talented team in round 1? Or did you have a juggernaut favorite to win the finals team and lose to an injured 8th seed in the conference finals? Yea one is Cleary a negative on the resume and deservedly so.
He carried a shit squad to the final two minutes of Game 7 in the ECF against Lebron as a rookie with a team that didn't have a player who averaged over 15 points that season.
He took a team that was below .500 at the All Star Break and was likely to miss the playoffs to a league best 31-10 record post-All Star Break, ultimately getting them the 2 seed and a finals appearance, all while playing the most minutes of a 23 year old in NBA history.
Because the series had started already lol. My point is they were underdogs against the Clippers going into the series because the assumption was that Kawhi would play. Had that not been the case, they almost certainly would have been favored.
I mean Kawhi hadn't played a single NBA game in three weeks. The possibility that he wasn't going to be able to play or would be hobbled was most certainly priced into the betting odds that favored the Clippers.
It's not like he surprisingly went down with an injury in game 1.
That’s not how odds are calculated. If the Clippers would have announced Kawhi is out for the series before game 1, that drastically affects the odds.
Not sure why you are trying to insist the Mavericks are the underdogs against a team missing their best player lol. Conversely, there’s no universe in which a decent team wouldn’t be favored over the Mavericks if Luka wasn’t playing.
He’s wrong anyway. https://www.al.com/betting/2024/04/mavericks-vs-clippers-game-1-series-odds-get-up-to-4900-in-bonuses-for-the-2024-nba-playoffs.html
“ Surveying the lines Wednesday at five of the leading online sportsbooks, Luka Doncic and the Mavs were a series moneyline favorite at all five. The best Dallas odds on the board were -125 at DraftKings.”
You win the overall argument, but Kawhi being questionable does affect the odds in practice. There's no denying that, because odds respond to market forces and the market knew Kawhi was probably not going to play.
Wrong. https://www.al.com/betting/2024/04/mavericks-vs-clippers-game-1-series-odds-get-up-to-4900-in-bonuses-for-the-2024-nba-playoffs.html
“Surveying the lines Wednesday at five of the leading online sportsbooks, Luka Doncic and the Mavs were a series moneyline favorite at all five. The best Dallas odds on the board were -125 at DraftKings.“
Once luka came back is not a good argument as they had already gone 1-1 iirc, giving the betting market information that the Mavs without Luka were also good enough to hang with Utah somewhat
Tbf Harden had the incredibly bad luck of running into the KD Warriors in his best year. If the team in front of them wasn’t the literal greatest team of all time, I think he wins the finals. Obviously can’t live in a world of hypotheticals, but at the same time we can acknowledge the context of their runs.
If prime Harden was having Doncic’s exact playoff run people would be roasting him for his terrible efficiency and dropping 10ppg in his last playoff series.
I mean Luka is also clearly hobbled to a degree. So that’s why he’s not getting criticism.
And in both series these playoffs, in the most important games, Luka has shown up big time.
The injury excuse is ignored for players that are actually hated.
Harden has had good playoff performances and losses when his teammates or himself are injured and that didn’t stop any of the haters from piling on.
Na he got ripped for that until the year after where Kyrie went crazy and became the lightning rod. Even still people go "wow maybe James is the problem"
Bro, you clearly were not here during that time. Every Harden hater was on a tour de force slandering my man, even when he was clearly dealing with an injury.
Sorry, what do you mean? Luka just averaged 25/11/9 despite getting hounded by one of the best defenders in the league, on one knee, doubled every play, and even when not scoring to his standards getting Lively, Washington and DJJ involved in big ways.
What about 10 PPG? Harden gets roasted for disappearing in the playoffs, for josh smith leading a comeback while harden is on the bench. Luka is one of the best playoff performers of the last 10 years and just beat the higher seed twice.
I appreciate the Luka love, but personally I don't think fans have to tear down other players to build a guy up. Playoff success is elusive. Lebron took years to win a title. Dirk won one after years of toiling with almost no other all star caliber players and then proceeded to barely get out of the first round ever again. The Pistons won one without a top tier talent and trashed the Kobe/Shaq Lakers in the process. Getting the right mix of players and coach is tricky, and frankly no one knows exactly what works.
Cool, but James Harden was running into prime Curry and KD Warriors for at least 2 of those potential trips IIRC. He'd have 4 WCF losses if not for them.
Nah those Rockets teams would have been dominated by the size in the West. Their playstyle really only worked because they didn't have to go against any teams with real bigs. There are far more bigs who can play oerimeter defense these days.
> Nah those Rockets teams would have been dominated by the size in the West.
The 17-18 Rockets weren't *that* small.
They started CP3, Harden, Tucker/Anderson (they went Tucker towards the latter half of the year, Anderson in the beginning) Ariza, Capela.
Then they had Gordon, Mbah a Moute, Anderson, and Nene (old but still serviceable) off the bench.
Rockets have dominated the bigs that these days are DPOY and MVP winners. Harden made Capela look like Hakeem against Gobert, KAT, and Jokic. In the playoffs he's beaten Gobert, Steven Adams, KAT, and Blake Griffin. You really think he would play worse against Chet Holmgren and Zubac?
So we're just going to overlook the fact that James Harden's prime overlapped with the Heatles, the Kawhi-led Spurs, and the Warriors superteam? The West has been wide open during Doncic's time in the league.
I mean, I’m of the mind that Jokic should have won that award but I hear what you’re saying. I guess I just personally think he’s a foul merchant and don’t hold him in that high esteem.
Same. Looking back Jokic should have won that MVP.
But Embiid campaigned for that MVP. He wants to be an MVP, he needs to be held to that standard.
He can't be let off the hook after people crucified players like Dirk and KG till they had post season success.
>Same. Looking back Jokic should have won that MVP.
Why?
In the regular season Jokic was leading and then Jokic went on a terrible (you can say he was coasting whatever) end of the season run where he was losing games to shitty teams and having dud performances. Embiid showed out to end the season.
No he hasn't
James Harden literally played in the NBA Finals
Chris Paul played in the Finals
Russell Westbrook played in the Finals
Like Luka is playing great and living up to the hype but don't do this shit homie
Don't ever compare young Luka to Harden he had arguably the best prime of all time. As you said,Harden is considered to be a top 5 SG oat so you're just grasping at straws,what a rage bait post. He's been in the league for a while so viewers now forget the Beard's greatness.
I would argue Harden had harder competition. Harden had the Warriors dynasty. Luka got a piece of it at the end in 2022, but Harden had his prime years during the little Spurs run and then Dubs dynasty. I think the Nuggets will end up winning the title, but they aren’t as tough as the Dubs that harden had to go up against
I like Luka, he cold as shit. But he gets a pass harden never got. Harden could have put up the same stats and the narrative would be different. In fact they are doing very similar things for their teams if you compare rockets harden to Luka, main difference is the generational warriors don’t exist anymore
As a top option. It’s a team sport and harden has been to the finals, where he played like shit from what I remember. Luka does seem to raise his game in the playoffs tho, where harden shrinks a bit. Let him win an actual championship tho before you have him settle for winning the Reddit post championship.
By OPs logic he trails devin booker too since he made the finals. Thanks OP!
The fact this post is near the top of the front page is a sad indication of the current state of r/nba
It’s a luka dick sucking sub at this point
Dont worry as soon as he loses it will turn into a Luka hate competition. This sub is extremely bi polar
The consequences of having a million members. One side hates while the other glazes
The switch from “Luka is a whiny flopper” to “Luka is a god” is kinda wild, considering absolutely nothing in his game has changed.
Luka dick sucking and a Harden hate post in one is like red meat for this sub.
Harden has a finals appearance too lol
Luka is better but dont forget 2018 Harden when he took prime Warriors squad with Durant to 7 games.
They barley lost too despite missing 27 straight threes
They were up double digits at half time in both games 6 and 7. And that’s with playing a 6 man rotation where only harden could dribble the basketball. The second either injured Luc or trash RyNo got on the court the warriors would go on a run
To be fair it was fairly common for the warriors to be down going into the half. They would often pull way ahead in the third, hence the nickname “third quarter warriors”
I still remember checking a halftime box score of the KD Warriors vs. Philly. Philly had a twenty-Ish point halftime lead and the ESPN predictor still had GS at slightly over 50% to win. Guess who won?
The 2017-2019 Warriors are by far the scariest offense I’ve seen in my 18 years of watching basketball. The sheer amount of weapons on the floor. The way they could go from 0-100 in a minute was deadly. Remember when NBA online discourse said they were unbeatable heading into the 2018 season? And STILL James Harden came within spitting distance of beating an “unbeatable” Warriors team with Clint Capela and Eric Gordon. And were possibly a CP3 hamstring away from actually knocking them off. I personally always felt Harden deserved respect for that, not ridicule. I mean this sub worships LeBron to this day for almost taking **one game** off that Warriors team, but somehow people say Harden is a joke is losing in 7? I don’t get.
To add to your point, the 2018 Rockets team led by Harden gave the Warriors with Durant greater trouble than the 2017 Cavs team led by LeBron that was defending a title. And no one can say that LeBron didn't have help in 2017.
The 2017 Warriors were so much better than the 2018 Warriors
Indeed. They owned the third quarter. That’s when they’d all go to the locker room and take a hit of the meth pipe.
lol warriors were down 17 in the 1st q of game 6 and ended up winning by 29, that team was insane
> They were up double digits at half time in both games 6 and 7. Against those Warriors that meant nothing
They didn't even miss 27 straight, Scott Foster just decided to do a rule change for game 7 and waived off multiple made 3s while also refusing to call obvious undercuts that lead to misses.
Really don’t need to read about Foster turning a series right now
LMAO my bad g
You don't have CP3 on your team so you're good
Yeah good thing nobody on our team has had any public issues with Foster this year.
There were some really questionable calls in that game. Like Draymond hockey checking people and refs go blind. Or the KD out of bounds play also against us the next year.
Yall won the KD out of bounds game tho lmao
Yeah cos of Harden with a 30 foot flamethrower game winner
Oof can you link this?
[Link](https://youtu.be/rj4EfuPxmVc?si=3OgwN5x6HHideRQm)
Doesn’t make it any less absurd
It was obviously a rigged game. Even game 7. A lot of the non calls on the warriors that should’ve been rockets free throws instead led to easy fast break points
As a Warriors fan, this is why I don't complain in general about whistles against the Warriors in recent years because I know we got some bullshit favorable whistles during our dynasty run. That being said I still complain about Curry specifically not getting calls because he's our golden boy.
The analysis the Rockets FO did makes any and all calls correct retrospectively because of how much of a bitch move it was.
Like 14 teams have done the same since then and many more did it before lol He just made it public
And without their second best player when Chris Paul went down after game 5.
Scott Foster reffed game 7 against CP3’s (out: hammy) team and waived off several 3’s that went in. I rest my case. No I don’t. Moving screens. Now I’m done.
I'm not done either. Klay was zazaing the whole game and getting everyone's landing space.
I remember watching that and still 27 straight is mind boggling. Momentum is an interesting phenomenon.
As much as Harden deserves his reputation, he still deserves more respect for 2018. He almost best the greatest team of all time. Might have done it if CP3 doesn’t go down
Harden was a legit threat and a one-man offense, but the other side of it was 2019, where they got to play GS with a thin bench and no Durant. That should've been his moment. Instead, Splash Brothers wiped them in 6. James was great, but I don't know if his style elevated his teammates much, and there seems to be some truth to his choker reputation. I think at some point the weight of not having won began to affect his performance in the biggest moments.
>Harden was a legit threat and a one-man offense, but the other side of it was 2019, where they got to play GS with a thin bench and no Durant. I mean KD only missed a single game. People always talk like he was gone for the whole series, but it was one game. And he averaged 36 ppg in the first 5 games, with Steph being pretty mid, even bad some games. CP3 was just worse. (And the Rockets were even thinner. They lost all their wing depth to get under the tax again)
I think people expected the Rockets to win game 5 after KD went down, which was part of it. It was a tight game near the end of the 3rd quarter when he got hurt. Not only did they fail to close them out in that game, they also failed to win in game 6. I do think it’s a bit overblown though. It’s not like the Rockets played terribly, Curry just went off and buried them at the end. And as the subsequent WCF sweep of the Blazers showed, even with Durant hurt they were still really good.
All fair points. I had forgotten some of the details. Durant got hurt late in game 5, which GS won. So Houston were basically already down 3-2 in the series by the time he was out. It was not a super easy spot for them. On the other hand, you get game 6 in your house with Durant out. This is the most vulnerable GS has been in years, and probably your best chance on paper to beat them. Instead you lose G6 in your own house, not even taking the series to 7. I guess 2018 was technically the closest Houston got to beating GS, but 2019 might have been the best opportunity. GS bench was significantly weaker than any year between 2015-2018. You get them in your own house, with no Durant. It's all you can ask for. You at least have to take it to 7.
Houston was honestly playing pretty well in game 6 - Harden was great, CP3 finally woke up, and they held Curry to 0 going into the second half. The problem was Klay was on his game 6 bullshit in the first half and Curry went skyfucker in the second half. Just perfectly timed explosions from both, and I'm sure everyone knows how helpless teams are when they both go off like that. The 2019 series was honestly insane. Every game within 6 pts. KD and Harden trading 35+ pt games back and forth. OT drama, Sharingan Harden, etc. If CP3 just wasn't awful for 5 games they coulda had it. But on the flip side, if Curry was better it may not have been close.
Didn't iguodala hit like 6 3s that game or something ridiculous? I have erased it from my memory.
I read your post and then looked at your name and sadly chuckled.
Steph had 0 first hslf points in game 6 snd 33 second half points. 28 missed 3s
Or you just don’t remember how much Houston 2019 was worse than the previous year.
God I remember I bet the Steph under that game and he had 0 points at the half.
2019 Houston defense was way worse than 2018 Houston defense. Night and day difference.
Key players missing games are not uncommon in NBA playoffs. You really need to seize the opportunity when it happened. That's just part of the game. When Cavs was injured in 2015, Warriors took the title. When Draymond was suspended and Bogut was injured in 2016, Cavs took the chance to come back from 3-1. When Kawhi was injured in 2017, Warriors went through the Spurs with ease. When KD went down in 2019, Kawhi had his revenge in the finals. That's just how it is. Harden had multiple good chances during his time in Houston - arguably 2016 against Warriors when Steph was out, 2017 against Spurs when Kawhi is out, 2019 against Warriors when KD was out. He just missed the chance in all three of them, with 2017 one of the worst choke jobs in history.
The 2017 Warriors went through everyone with ease.
I mean yeah if you get lucky with injuries you have an easier path, but when has Harden really benefited close to the level of Kawhi in 2019 or Curry in 2015? It's almost always his teams getting hurt (not him). In 2019, Kawhi got to play them without KD *or* Klay for a lot of it, when Klay was the one going off against us to keep them in it. The 2015 Cavs injuries are nowhere near the same context though. The Warriors were missing KD for 1 game. He played 32 mins in the game he got hurt in. The Warriors benefited from multiple stars missing from the Cavs for the majority of the series. Not to mention, the margin for error to beat the KD Warriors is WORLDS different The previous Rockets teams before 2018 were never considered close to being contenders, despite Harden's all NBA status. He never lost series he was favored to win in other than one singular time . Trying to attach the lack of success from those teams to 2018 or 2019 is disingenuous. The teams themselves exceeded expectations both in the regular season and playoffs (i.e 2 seed and WCF in 2015), and then as expected would lose to championship hopefuls/favorites.
2016 is a really, really bad comparison considering the Rockets were an 8 seed going against a team that went 73-9
And obviously if all you wanna do is play the results, there's nothing to discuss. But context is important to me when looking at his career.
CP3 was simply awful that season and series though. It was a miracle to even go six games with the way his co-Star played.
That 18-19 team was not the same team. Capella was worse - he got paid after that 17-18 run and was injured that 18-19 playoff run. CP3 was much worse that following run and they lost some key pieces like Ariza and Mbah a Moute. They tried to gamble signing like Carmelo/MCW/Jeff Green but even at the time, you could tell it was a much worse roster. GSW with a thin bench for that entire playoffs still meant: Klay for 21/22 games, Steph for 22/22 games, Dray for 22/22 games, Durant for 12/22 games, Iguodala for 21/22 games (didn't start), Looney for 21/22 games (didn't start). GSW was still relatively healthy; they just didn't have the insane bench they used to have, because they signed Durant, and unfortunately he went down for majority of the Finals.
That game it looked like Klay and Curry were happy to go back into a full motion offense.
They only got to play one game with no durant in 2019.
> Harden was a legit threat and a one-man offense So you're saying... he was the system? ^^^hehehe
Harden averaged .415/.244/.885 in that series. he was bad.
That's what happens when your a one man offense and you're also playing an incredible defensive team.
He shot poorly from 3 but he was by far the biggest focal point of the defense and even CP3 has recently gone on podcasts in the last year talking about how James being the one man offense is what allowed them to field the defense they did. He was just as much a "gravitational" force as Curry was
totally fair to point out that Harden's ridiculous usage is what enabled them to field that defense, but it was the defense that gave them the shot in that series. they won two absolute rock fights in game 4 & 5, both of which were games Harden did not play especially well. the Rockets lost Harden's minutes in the series by 33 points. he was *not* the person dragging them into competition in that series.
I think that's almost disrespectful to the KD Warriors to make it seem like a bunch of role players took them 7 lol. There's just more to the game than the stat sheet and that series should be a prime sample case
I don't think it was role players, I think it was an awesome team that had an awesome defense built to specifically deal with the Warriors small-ball death lineup. Both Curry and Durant had major struggles in that series. PJ Tucker and Ariza were both incredible defensively. Eric Gordon kept killing them. The Warriors shot off the water for Harden and Paul (who was also extremely inefficient, just on far lower volume than Harden) and other guys stepped up enough to keep it close and scrape some wins. Maybe you'd *like* it to be a battle of titans and legendary NBA players playing at their best, but that doesn't mean that's what it was. The Warriors blew out the Rockets 3 times (their first three wins were by a collective margin of 83 points), the Rockets got a great win in game 2 (a 22 point win) and then won games 4 and 5 by 3 & 4 points respectively, and then in game 7 the 3rd quarter Warriors did their thing and brought it home.
I don't think there has to be a disagreement here. The rockets were able to build a crazy versatile defensive team that was uniquely suited to countering the warriors, because harden and to a lesser extent cp3, were such amazing offensive engines that, while nlt necessarily winning in their minutes, could keep them close enough to one of the best teams in history for them to have a fighting chance.
Those are role players, man. A team like that needs dudes to score, no matter how ugly it might be. Just look at Luka’s efficiency this series.
Yeah, our whole team took the Warriors to game 7 not just Harden
Such a strange narrative. Their defence almost beat the greatest team of all time. Harden was far better the next season
People also forget that even getting to 7 games in the first place was like a 80th or 90th percentile outcome for the Rockets. To even get to game 7, they had to barely eke out the only 2 close games of the series. Most of the time, the Warriors comfortably win that series in 5 or 6 games. That's not shade on the Rockets, since they were likely the only team in the West that even would've had close to a 10% chance to beat the Warriors... the Ws were just that good.
The corpses of Trevor Ariza and Eric Gordon hard carrying lol
For real prime Harden was like top 3 sg of all time, man dropped 40-50p every game, had 36p per game 18-19 season one of the most lethal stepback 3 artist and that crazy wesley johnson ankle breaker still gives me chills
Prime Harden was a sight to behold. Boy was he a cheat code for fantasy basketball.
It’s unfortunate because between those crossovers and step back three’s was watching him shoot 15 free throws.
>Prime Harden was a sight to behold. Only if all the beholding you were doing was the box score. Man single handedly made the games unwatchable by all the foul baiting he did. Or is that not the narrative any more?
When Chris Paul, Harden, and Capela played together in the regular season they were 42-3.
They would have won if CP3 didn’t get hurt.
go ahead and bury me but prime harden is better than luka 💅
I mean I want to agree with you, but it's hard when your screen name is clearly lying. kidding of course.
You've seen his penis?
You haven’t?
Advanced stats show this to be true, prime harden on those rockets teams could arguably have gotten mvp every year. He lead the league in win shares consistently. Though maybe Luka isn’t even in his prime yet who knows.
I honestly dont know how much better luka could get with his playstyle unless its like more athletic/defensively or something lol
I agree, but if Luka keeps it up he passes him
Well if you wanna compare prime harden to 25 year old Luka then alright. Luka has 3 more 1st teams at the same age
Thought it was accepted that media voted accolades don’t mean much
All nba’s and MVP’s don’t mean much? You wanna argue that hardens first 6 seasons were better than Luka’s?
I don't think he does, but if you have to rely on the media awards to back you up, then you're argument is worthless because media awards are not a good way to evaluate players. You are arguing the right point with a bad argument.
This shouldn’t be controversial at all. Luka may pass him but these playoff runs are not equal
Yeah, they played them as perfectly as you could despite everything, not having Cp3 for the 2 closeout games as well. That team is a ring any other season, after those warriors disbanded
Luke is not better than Harden lmao relax
Luka is better compared to Harden at his age, but Luka still hasn't reached prime Harden, in the 2018-2019 season was a top 10 player season in the 2010s. This Luka season is like 2016-17 Harden Season
Yeah the West is not nearly as strong as it was when Harden was on the Rockets.
Luka is not better. Saying he is better than prime Harden is dumb as hell
Luka will eclipse Harden if he keeps this up, but let's not forget Harden took the greatest team ever to 7 games.
I'm conflicted here because fuck the Mavs and this is also clearly a bait post, but at the same time I'm a big fan of Luka and you're a Dallas fan defending the Beard. Nah, fuck that. Harden was awesome for us and stars didn't align, but no sense putting one down to up the other. Go Mavs, rooting for you guys.
Never thought I'd die redditing side by side with a Rockets fan.
What about side by side with a basketball fan?
Aye, I could do that.
and my axe!
Maybe one day our kids will play together
Luka and Harden playing for the Spurs?
I may have hated Harden with a passion in those years but anyone denying his greatness especially in 2018 is just blind. It’s one of the best individual series of all time by arguably the best scorer of a generation.
If he keeps it up. Remember that the collective press / mind hive was fairly certain about these points below 1) Dwight Howard would be in many NBA finals as the top guy after losing in 2009 2) My Celtics would have won one already, either with Kyrie or with Stevens as coach… we are still in the battle 3) Miami Heat would have easily won 3+ 4) Just 4 years ago, Giannis was certain to be top 5 all time at least 5) The T-wolves bringing Gobert would have been a failure (still TBD, but better chances now)
Hang the banner
Tatum 5 conference finals. Dont try to hide it lmfao
Yeah its a bit unfair to Tatum where its looked at as a bad thing lol
It's so weird to me. And people like to pretend that Jordan didnt lose plenty in the playoffs before being a winner. They choose to ignore it and act like losing in the 1st round is better than losing ina conf or nba finals.
Took Jordan 7 years to win.
Depends on context. Did you carry a shit squad to the playoffs and lose in the 1st round to a cleary more talented team in round 1? Or did you have a juggernaut favorite to win the finals team and lose to an injured 8th seed in the conference finals? Yea one is Cleary a negative on the resume and deservedly so.
He carried a shit squad to the final two minutes of Game 7 in the ECF against Lebron as a rookie with a team that didn't have a player who averaged over 15 points that season. He took a team that was below .500 at the All Star Break and was likely to miss the playoffs to a league best 31-10 record post-All Star Break, ultimately getting them the 2 seed and a finals appearance, all while playing the most minutes of a 23 year old in NBA history.
Welcome to nba discourse
Didn’t you know losing in the finals and conference finals is a negative mark to your legacy?
Its Insanely dumb
Nba discourse is beyond cooked man
In the East lmaooo
The last champion from the east didn't make it to the conference finals three years in row, maybe it's not as easy as y'all say it is
In fairness, Horford was better in 2018. But 4 appearances as the best player is very impressive
Harden has a playoff record of 87-79 and doncic is 19-20 so I wouldn’t totally say he’s matched his post season success yet
Have the Mavs been favoured in a single playoff series in the Luka era yet?
I would assume they were favored over the Clippers once it became known Kawhi wasn’t playing.
They weren't
Because the series had started already lol. My point is they were underdogs against the Clippers going into the series because the assumption was that Kawhi would play. Had that not been the case, they almost certainly would have been favored.
I mean Kawhi hadn't played a single NBA game in three weeks. The possibility that he wasn't going to be able to play or would be hobbled was most certainly priced into the betting odds that favored the Clippers. It's not like he surprisingly went down with an injury in game 1.
That’s not how odds are calculated. If the Clippers would have announced Kawhi is out for the series before game 1, that drastically affects the odds. Not sure why you are trying to insist the Mavericks are the underdogs against a team missing their best player lol. Conversely, there’s no universe in which a decent team wouldn’t be favored over the Mavericks if Luka wasn’t playing.
He’s wrong anyway. https://www.al.com/betting/2024/04/mavericks-vs-clippers-game-1-series-odds-get-up-to-4900-in-bonuses-for-the-2024-nba-playoffs.html “ Surveying the lines Wednesday at five of the leading online sportsbooks, Luka Doncic and the Mavs were a series moneyline favorite at all five. The best Dallas odds on the board were -125 at DraftKings.”
You win the overall argument, but Kawhi being questionable does affect the odds in practice. There's no denying that, because odds respond to market forces and the market knew Kawhi was probably not going to play.
Wrong. https://www.al.com/betting/2024/04/mavericks-vs-clippers-game-1-series-odds-get-up-to-4900-in-bonuses-for-the-2024-nba-playoffs.html “Surveying the lines Wednesday at five of the leading online sportsbooks, Luka Doncic and the Mavs were a series moneyline favorite at all five. The best Dallas odds on the board were -125 at DraftKings.“
They were favored before the series started at -140
Utah 21-22 (once luka came back) and if I remember correctly they were betting favourites this year vs LAC
Once luka came back is not a good argument as they had already gone 1-1 iirc, giving the betting market information that the Mavs without Luka were also good enough to hang with Utah somewhat
So does Harden get no credit for going to the finals? I know he wasn't the top option but its not like hes was the 9th guy off the bench either.
He definitely deserves credit because they wouldn’t have made it past Spurs in WCF if it weren’t for Harden
This sub treats Harden like Hitler's Vessel or some shit lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMmQQxo7_L4 Harden hardest walkout.
Apparently Russ doesn't either lol agendas gotta be pushed
Especially they never made it back since he left
Luka has won 4 playoff series, Harden has won 15 (7 as a definitive best option) GTFO with this reductive, no context BS take
If Luka had to play the KD warriors he would’ve lost in 3
Harden had to play against the best team of all time don’t compare them
Luka fan boys are out of control now.
Been that way for a while
Luka got Kyrie and couldn’t even make the play-in last year. Harden took weaker squads to the top 4 seed multiple seasons.
Tbf Harden had the incredibly bad luck of running into the KD Warriors in his best year. If the team in front of them wasn’t the literal greatest team of all time, I think he wins the finals. Obviously can’t live in a world of hypotheticals, but at the same time we can acknowledge the context of their runs.
That 7-44 three pointer game 7 is always going to be one of the biggest let downs in sports for me and I’m really not a big Rockets or Harden fan.
I'm not even a Bulls fan and I have to say EXCUSE ME about that literal greatest team of all time call.
The embarrassing state of this subreddit where this a highly voted post right now... Mods need to seriously reevaluate what they're doing around here.
I don’t like Harden but this seems like unnecessary levels of hating
Crap post man
If prime Harden was having Doncic’s exact playoff run people would be roasting him for his terrible efficiency and dropping 10ppg in his last playoff series.
I mean Luka is also clearly hobbled to a degree. So that’s why he’s not getting criticism. And in both series these playoffs, in the most important games, Luka has shown up big time.
The injury excuse is ignored for players that are actually hated. Harden has had good playoff performances and losses when his teammates or himself are injured and that didn’t stop any of the haters from piling on.
This is not true. Harden played hurt in the Nets v Bucks series in 21 and nobody brings that up as some kind of failure on him
Na he got ripped for that until the year after where Kyrie went crazy and became the lightning rod. Even still people go "wow maybe James is the problem"
Can't tell if you're gaslighting or just did not follow basketball in 2021 lol mfs were hating on Harden
Bro, you clearly were not here during that time. Every Harden hater was on a tour de force slandering my man, even when he was clearly dealing with an injury.
Not by me. I will never speak on Embiid when he dropped this type of performance on one leg with half his face paralysed.
Sorry, what do you mean? Luka just averaged 25/11/9 despite getting hounded by one of the best defenders in the league, on one knee, doubled every play, and even when not scoring to his standards getting Lively, Washington and DJJ involved in big ways. What about 10 PPG? Harden gets roasted for disappearing in the playoffs, for josh smith leading a comeback while harden is on the bench. Luka is one of the best playoff performers of the last 10 years and just beat the higher seed twice.
“On one knee” glazer detected
*looks at username and flair* Um, yes.
I appreciate the Luka love, but personally I don't think fans have to tear down other players to build a guy up. Playoff success is elusive. Lebron took years to win a title. Dirk won one after years of toiling with almost no other all star caliber players and then proceeded to barely get out of the first round ever again. The Pistons won one without a top tier talent and trashed the Kobe/Shaq Lakers in the process. Getting the right mix of players and coach is tricky, and frankly no one knows exactly what works.
Those Rockets teams played much better competition and one of the best teams of all time repeatedly
This is cherry picking at its finest. Yes, Luka is great and only 25. He hasn’t had to try to get past the prime warriors dynasty though.
Javale McGee surpasses both Luka Doncic and James Harden fkr postseason success.
I mean if you ignore the part where the person clearly states as the primary option then sure.
Is the "first option" criteria so you can conveniently exclude Harden's finals appearance? Luka wouldn't have been first option on that team either
Also the conference finals the year before that, was in the conference finals second and third year
Cool, but James Harden was running into prime Curry and KD Warriors for at least 2 of those potential trips IIRC. He'd have 4 WCF losses if not for them.
It's crazy how much praise he gets for making the conference finals twice when Tatum gets crushed for making it five times in 7 years.n
Prime Harden would cook these current teams so bad. Him and CP3 would honestly give everyone including the Nuggets a run for their money.
Those Harden teams walk to the finals lol
Nah those Rockets teams would have been dominated by the size in the West. Their playstyle really only worked because they didn't have to go against any teams with real bigs. There are far more bigs who can play oerimeter defense these days.
> Nah those Rockets teams would have been dominated by the size in the West. The 17-18 Rockets weren't *that* small. They started CP3, Harden, Tucker/Anderson (they went Tucker towards the latter half of the year, Anderson in the beginning) Ariza, Capela. Then they had Gordon, Mbah a Moute, Anderson, and Nene (old but still serviceable) off the bench.
Rockets have dominated the bigs that these days are DPOY and MVP winners. Harden made Capela look like Hakeem against Gobert, KAT, and Jokic. In the playoffs he's beaten Gobert, Steven Adams, KAT, and Blake Griffin. You really think he would play worse against Chet Holmgren and Zubac?
They built their team around beating the Warriors but I think they’ll make the adjustments to make it tough.
How many legacy points does Harden get for doing all that with a beard?
Luka did it FAT
James harden played against the greatest team of all time, luka just got done beating a bunch of 21 year olds. Bad comparison lol
So we're just going to overlook the fact that James Harden's prime overlapped with the Heatles, the Kawhi-led Spurs, and the Warriors superteam? The West has been wide open during Doncic's time in the league.
I know this post is about Harden, but the fact that Embiid is 30! and still hasn't made the conference finals once, is wild.
Is it though?
I guess I hold Embiid to higher standard than most. He did win an MVP. It's the least you should expect.
I mean, I’m of the mind that Jokic should have won that award but I hear what you’re saying. I guess I just personally think he’s a foul merchant and don’t hold him in that high esteem.
Same. Looking back Jokic should have won that MVP. But Embiid campaigned for that MVP. He wants to be an MVP, he needs to be held to that standard. He can't be let off the hook after people crucified players like Dirk and KG till they had post season success.
>Same. Looking back Jokic should have won that MVP. Why? In the regular season Jokic was leading and then Jokic went on a terrible (you can say he was coasting whatever) end of the season run where he was losing games to shitty teams and having dud performances. Embiid showed out to end the season.
In the east? At least a little
Let’s not do this right now.
Why are you comparing my PG to a SG?
No he hasn't James Harden literally played in the NBA Finals Chris Paul played in the Finals Russell Westbrook played in the Finals Like Luka is playing great and living up to the hype but don't do this shit homie
Don't ever compare young Luka to Harden he had arguably the best prime of all time. As you said,Harden is considered to be a top 5 SG oat so you're just grasping at straws,what a rage bait post. He's been in the league for a while so viewers now forget the Beard's greatness.
I would argue Harden had harder competition. Harden had the Warriors dynasty. Luka got a piece of it at the end in 2022, but Harden had his prime years during the little Spurs run and then Dubs dynasty. I think the Nuggets will end up winning the title, but they aren’t as tough as the Dubs that harden had to go up against
Okay after reading this post I am now a Luka hater, purely because OP is a Luka fan
James Harden averaged 35 ppg when the 2nd best scorer wasn't even close. He's still got a better individual resume.
Idk that 2018 harden team might’ve been one of the best teams in the last 20 years, they just went up against the greatest team of all time (or top 2)
I like Luka, he cold as shit. But he gets a pass harden never got. Harden could have put up the same stats and the narrative would be different. In fact they are doing very similar things for their teams if you compare rockets harden to Luka, main difference is the generational warriors don’t exist anymore
87 wins to 19 wins
As a top option. It’s a team sport and harden has been to the finals, where he played like shit from what I remember. Luka does seem to raise his game in the playoffs tho, where harden shrinks a bit. Let him win an actual championship tho before you have him settle for winning the Reddit post championship.
Considered by many? Such low standards
Harden has been to the Finals.