WATCH: This James Harden defensive failure is bad, even by his standards
You won't believe how terrible James Harden's effort on an defensive rebound was Monday. No, wait, yes you will.
By
Matt Moore
•
1 min read
James Harden was better last season, I swear. I watched almost every Harden possession for this post on how he matched up with Stephen Curry for the MVP, and that included defense. He was good! He tried! The effort was there.
This season:
I've been hounding Harden for his defense (here and here) but this one from Monday night's debacle vs. the Pistons is especially bad.
Charles Barkley would say "that's just turrible." The Miami kid wouldn't even say that was a "good job, good effort." If you were grading that defensive effort, you would send the kid to the principal's office, call his parents and demand to know where they went wrong.
The defense is now seven points better per 100 possessions when Harden sits. The Rockets need his offense, and he has given sporadic effort. But noting possessions like these aren't cherry picking out feces in a pile of diamonds. They are by and large indicative of the problems the Rockets are having in effort and focus. Additionally, this again shows Harden's biggest problem area this season: defensive rebounding. This wasn't his man, but teams are crashing the glass with Harden's man because they know he won't effort to secure it, even if he's in the paint. This has to change if the Rockets are going to get on track.
Houston fell to 7-11 this season after Monday night's loss to Detroit.
