NBA playoffs 2018

Well said, DOTB. If he stopped trying to use the refs as a weapon against the spirit of the game (or more to the point, if the refs stopped being complicit in it), 90% of what I dislike about his game would dissipate immediately.

Also, Marcus Smart flopped like New Coke on those plays, but what goes around comes around.

Star players get star treatment. It's no different than LeBron flopping or DWade nut punching guys. IT4 and PP are just as guilty as JH for using refs to their advantage and pretty soon, Tatum and Brown will be too.

bosox79 said:

Star players get star treatment. It's no different than LeBron flopping or DWade nut punching guys. IT4 and PP are just as guilty as JH for using refs to their advantage and pretty soon, Tatum and Brown will be too.

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Harden is much worse than anyone else, it seems. And it's way different than Wade punching dudes in the nuts.

johnmd20 said:

Harden is much worse than anyone else, it seems. And it's way different than Wade punching dudes in the nuts.

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I don't buy it. He's no different than Jimmy Butler now or Corey Magette before him. I guess the difference is, Harden is a top 5 player.

bosox79 said:

I don't buy it. He's no different than Jimmy Butler now or Corey Magette before him. I guess the difference is, Harden is a top 5 player.

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LeBron, Durant, Curry and Anthony Davis are (probably) the other top 5 players — you think all those guys rely on ref-baiting to the degree Harden does?

And then there's the patented stepback, which is a thing of beauty when he does it correctly, but dirty-sneaky when he starts adding a step or two...

Harden is a fascinating player because on one hand; he has a lot of skills that are crowd-pleasers. Terrific handles, can shoot from anywhere on the court, brilliant vision. When you factor in his playmaking ability, he is the most complete offensive player in the NBA and really one of the most complete in history. On the other hand, nobody likes watching someone shoot a million free throws and a lot of times he does initiate the contact, and that can be frustrating, especially as a fan of an opposing team.

That's the NBA though. Foul calls favor the offensive player, and stars are given the benefit 90 percent of the time. People complaining about traveling; I mean EVERYONE in the NBA travels all of the time. In the Celtics game yesterday fans were howling for Giannis to be called for traveling, when realistically he wasn't doing anything different than what he has been doing all season.

Sam Ray Not said:

LeBron, Durant, Curry and Anthony Davis are (probably) the other top 5 players — you think all those guys rely on ref-baiting to the degree Harden does?

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Depends on what you mean by the word "rely." LeBron is a notorious whiner and flop artist. Durant and Curry whine a lot too. All of those guys are also in the top 15 in FTA per game.

They are just more aesthetically pleasing to watch than Harden.

Giannis, Booker, Cousins, Butler, DeRozan... they all do it.

Sam Ray Not said:

And then there's the patented stepback, which is a thing of beauty when he does it correctly, but dirty-sneaky when he starts adding a step or two...

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It is dirty sneaky to try and get an advantage on a defender when taking a shot? So every play where someone drags their pivot foot, or pushes off with their non shooting hand, or takes three steps on a dunk, or sets a moving screen, or....?

The Harden hate is strong in here

the moops said:

It is dirty sneaky to try and get an advantage on a defender when taking a shot?

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By egregiously walking? Yeah. Do you approve of the quadruple-step he takes in the clip above? To me, that stuff cheapens the accomplishment of a properly-executed stepback J — which he's obviously more than capable of. YMMV.

I don't know. That seems like barely a travel to me. Honestly.

the moops said:

I don't know. That seems like barely a travel to me. Honestly.

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Seriously? How about this question, which foot is his "pivot foot?"

If that's "barely" traveling, then the NBA has fucked up so bad that they need to re-write the rule book, because it's clear that fans no longer understand the rules. If he had shot the ball on his "first" step back (where he lands basically on the 3 point line or a little in front of it), he would be ok, the extra double step back behind the line is blatant, complete and total traveling. You have to dribble when you walk or jump or step back. Look at the video on the right, I realize it's an exaggerated view of the situation, but the reality is by giving an all world player like James Harden a separate set of rules, even "barely," you are giving him a massive advantage. The defender has no chance to defend something like that. None. That's not basketball. That's just a shooting competition at that point, where you may as well not have a defender.

bosox79 said:

I don't buy it. He's no different than Jimmy Butler now or Corey Magette before him. I guess the difference is, Harden is a top 5 player.

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Good God no. Nobody has ever, ever tried to initiate contact as consistently and blatantly as Harden. It's almost every single trip down the floor. This is very different than Lebron or Curry whining. Harden whines too, plenty, but it's not the whining that people are aggravated about, it's the initiation of contact with the defender and getting a foul call where, if anything, the foul should be on him. His game is completely different than Lebron or Curry or Magette or Butler or any of these other guys. They're not even in the same conversation.

Kyrie has one equivalent move, which I talked about yesterday, where he gets around a defender and then immediately steps in his path and slows down or comes to a stop, so the defender basically ends up on his back and then he gets the foul call. A couple times a game, you might see Lebron drop a shoulder into a guy to make room to get off a shot. Harden does all of these things and many more, nearly every time he has the ball.

God, I wish I was better at finding and posting videos, because there are so many examples of what I'm talking about from every game he plays that maybe people need to see it to understand it.

Im not sure how different it is from the hop step we see multiple times per game .

Here's a video of one of Harden's other "patented" moves. When he has the ball in a pick and roll at the three point line, and as the defender tries to get around the pick, Harden hooks the defenders arm, while simultaneously throwing a shot up at the rim. Result: 3 foul shots for Harden. He got 9 of these calls in the first round of the playoffs last year. NINE. If you fast forward the video to about the 2:20 mark and watch from there. They bring in a 19 year NBA ref (5 years as head of officials) and he comes to the conclusion that Harden should be called for an offensive foul. Note, Harden does not just do this at the 3 point line, it's one of his go to moves any time he's dribbling and a defender is near him. He uses his off arm to hook the defender and then flail and throw up a shot. There is nobody in the game doing this kind of thing. Nobody:

That video is from last year. They did change the rules, didn't they?

I love watching how Harden is able to manipulate space to draw contact and fouls. Yes, he initiates contact frequently and, yes, the league should do a better job of calling offensive fouls on those plays. But, to ask Harden not to take advantage of that is silly. He is brilliant at exploiting an element of the game anyone else could take advantage of if they had his combination of court awareness, quickness, and body control.

You can't blame players for how the refs calls fouls (or non-fouls.) Blame the league.

The only way to solve this is to review each game and suspend players for one game for each egregious flop, and punish players for intentionally creating contact: perhaps make it count as a charge. The NBA has no intention of doing anything to improve the quality of basketball at the expense of their superstars, though.

I think folks are getting a little off topic here. Nobody is asking the league to change the rules, or looking to blame anyone for anything. The question that gave rise to this conversation was essentially "Why do people dislike Harden's game?" That's the question I'm answering as well as some others. I don't anticipate the league will do anything, and I'm not asking them to change the rules.

The only thing I would like to see is if they are going to let Harden get away with this shit, then there needs to be more consistency towards other players. We're coming off a game yesterday in which Tatum and Jaylen Brown were both super aggressive, they took a combined 37 shots from the field, and they took a total of 2 free throws. They were hammered time and time again by defenders and got zero calls, yet, Harden, who actually initiates the contact, and most of the time, it's very little contact but he flails and flops so much it looks like he got shot, gets to the line every other time he touches the ball.

I don't like his game, because I think it's ugly (although it doesn't need to be, as we saw in the 4th quarter last night, when he took over the game, and barely went to the free throw line), but worse, it's based on the fact that he's playing by a different standard and under different rules than almost everyone else. I would love to see how he would react to being officiated the way Tatum and Brown were officiated yesterday. Conversely, I'd love to see what Brown/Tatum could do if they got the calls he gets. Is it Harden's fault that he's officiated differently? Nope, but I don't have to enjoy his brand of basketball either.

Hassan Whiteside looks like he's just loafing around out there. You think he'd be killing the smallish Sixers on the glass and in the post but he's just kind of standing around.

NM

To truly understand how much of Harden's game is based on initiating contact, you need to break down the numbers a bit.

Harden averaged 20.1 shots a game from the field this year, and 10.1 free throw attempts. But, he averaged 10.0 3 point attempts a game. That means he's getting to the line 10.1 times for every 10.1 shots inside the 3 point line.

For comparison, Lebron averaged 19.3 field goal attempts, but only 5.0 from deep. He got 6.5 free throw attempts for every 14.3 field goal attempts inside the 3 point line.

Anthony Davis averaged 8.0 free throw attempts on 17.3 field goals inside the 3 point line.

Giannis was 8.5 for every 17.8.

Lillard was 7.4 for every 11.8.

Durant was 5.9 for every 11.9.

Nobody is even close to Harden at 10.1 for every 10.1. There is nobody playing the game the way he does, so it really shouldn't surprise people that there is a mixed opinion on his style of play.

I'm interested in seeing Fultz play in a game where the Sixers are down. He looks lost and unsure with the ball. Would love to see J Rich pick him up full court

Wade is having what Scal would call a hot tub time machine kind of night so far.

Philly has a lot of talent, but they are front runners? If so, if Celts get past the Buck and get Smart back -- ECF here we come!

benhogan said:

I'm interested in seeing Fultz play in a game where the Sixers are down. He looks lost and unsure with the ball. Would love to see J Rich pick him up full court

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Yep. McConnell comes in. Brett Brown doing a good job making sure Markelle isn't exposed

bosox79 said:

I don't buy it. He's no different than Jimmy Butler now or Corey Magette before him. I guess the difference is, Harden is a top 5 player.

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It's different in a couple of ways. For one, there is no basketball value to punching dudes in the nuts, other than as some sort of mind game, so you don't end up with ridiculous apologists and what-about-isms like we're seeing here.

It is similar to flops. Flops suck and floppers are a scourge on the game. Flops are the single worst thing about soccer (worse than the fans and even than the consistency of the refereeing). There was a time I wanted to like Vlade Divac but I just couldn't countenance all the flopping. I'm not saying my disgust about Harden is fully rational or fair, but I'll be consistent on that point.

There are gradations of flopping. Totally simulating contact should be something people are routinely suspended for, until it stops. But it's categorically different than (A) pumping to try and draw contact by an out-of-control defender, which I think is legit, and also different from (B) going out of your own airspace by jumping forward or kicking out legs to try and draw a foul, which is a common Harden move (and semi-frequent Pierce move) and should be called an offensive foul more often than it is. It pisses me off when Lebron does it too, one of the reasons I've found it hard to appreciate his game vs someone like, say, Durant.

I wish traveling were called more like it was in the 80s, but it's true that it's much more widespread - kinda more honored in the breach these days. It also has less of an immediate impact on the game's score relative to drawing shooting-foul calls. There are a few things they'll still call, but the rule has been made a joke, can't blame a particular player for that. Not so with ref-baiting, nor the sub-category of flopping - some players are far more egregious about that than the norm.

Man Simmons free throw motion is ugly.

Poor Kelly gets no respect

It's impossible for me to root for Miami, as much as I want to

They called palming? In that situation?

Heat got it back together for a couple minutes.

As the lead went from 14 down to 2, I said there was absolutely no way Miami was going to hang on.

They have pleasantly surprised.

Bob Montgomery's Helmet Hat said:

It's impossible for me to root for Miami, as much as I want to

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Think of it as extending the series to the benefit of the C’s.

Bad shot

Bob Montgomery's Helmet Hat said:

It's impossible for me to root for Miami, as much as I want to

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Hard to fault you... but somehow I am doing it. Maybe sympathy for kelly o is enough to deaden dirty dwayne memories.

Sixers with a ton of bad shots in the past 3-4 min.

Mystic Merlin said:

Sixers with a ton of bad shots in the past 3-4 min.

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Everyone is spazzing out right now

k-factory said:

Think of it as extending the series to the benefit of the C’s.

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+1

Pass the ball Kelly

dhellers said:

Hard to fault you... but somehow I am doing it. Maybe sympathy for kelly o is enough to deaden dirty dwayne memories.

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It must be said that KO is giving 100% out there, whatever you might think of his teammates.

Other than that 35-footer he took with 15 left on the clock. But has played some great D.

Just saw a stat on Twitter that the Sixers haven't won a game where they were trailing by 11 or more entering the fourth quarter since 2009. It's been 192 straight games. That is fucking insane.

This is where Simmons’ shit perimeter game really hurts you.

Mystic Merlin said:

Sixers with a ton of bad shots in the past 3-4 min.

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Think folks need to remember that the Sixers have had this long winning streak going on, but very few of the games have been close. I'm not sure they are really tested yet when it comes down to late game situations. I also think playing from behind is going to be tough for them when they have a point guard who can't shoot from deep. It'll be interesting to see how some of their games play out late if Miami can keep them close.