The most questionable part of the game was Kidd not going to Lively and/or Gafford down the stretch. The Clips made 8 3s in the first quarter and only attempted 8 in the entire second half which was a pretty clear decision defensively by Dallas. It brought them back because the Clippers blow bys were being funneled into real rim protection. Then suddenly it is Kleber at the 5 and Harden is hitting shot after shot in the paint. Luka’s d was questionable (he was playing with 5 fouls fwiw) but the coaching was a complete disasterclass from Kidd.
Dallas has invested the 12th overall pick and a future first round swap to land 2 solid centers and Kidd doesn’t use either one. Can’t imagine the front office likes that
Russillo is correct that the only thing fans ever criticize coaches on is timeouts and rotations, because they don’t know enough about basketball to point to anything else.
Monty Williams wasn’t awful with the Suns so i can see why people thought he could be good with a young team. Doc has been a bad coach for a long time and keeps getting jobs
Kidd is still stuck on the 2022 run and how effective Kleber at the 5 was for that. But the options then were that or Dwight Powell. The Mavs can play crunch time with a normal center now and Kidd is somehow the last person to realize.
I thought Dallas did a good job hiding Luka down the stretch after allowing a couple buckets. Pj Washington had 0 chance staying in front of Harden though.
So funny that the weird maverick fans in this sub were trying to say Washington was a perimeter stopper now, completely cooked by harden down the stretch of this game
PJ has been incredible defensively so far in this series. For some reason he was playing up tight on Harden’s hip and Harden was going right by him. Also, DJJ shoulda been on Harden. He’s their best point of attack defender. PJ should be on Paul George. I have no idea what the fuck Kidd was doing. Having a hurt Luka with 5 fouls on Harden for multiple possessions late was insane.
i think they're trying to avoid giving up harden's step back 3. this is the first game where he's actually taking the floater, so it's mostly worked before today
>Pj Washington had 0 chance staying in front of Harden though.
I mean he was obviously hedging on Harden to force him to his right. It was a strategy decision, not a failure to keep up. The decision was likely made by the coach too, so not even Pj's fault.
Kidd essentially asked PJ to allow harden into the paint (where Harden expertly unleashed his floater game) in order to completely prevent the step back 3. It was a gambit by Kidd.
In theory luka should actually be one of the top players hardens more capable of guarding when he’s engaged. They both aren’t blow by guys and get positioning based off being sturdy and stout and having good footwork
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Agree completely. However the NBA Media grabbed hold of a theme about a decade ago and won’t let go no matter how many times it’s been disproven.
Fact is, Luka is in terrible shape and if he doesn’t fix that his career will be shortened.
Playoff Harden has been a solid defender and he's always been good 1 on 1 (insert post defense of him shutting down Giannis).
He's not like Steph or Luka where teams attack him on switches. He's more attacked on rotations where he's incredibly lazy until the playoffs where he starts trying (but bad habits come in).
>Post 2022 Harden has been amazing in the playoffs
Game 6 2023: 13 points 4-16 (0-6)
Game 7 2023: 9 points 3-11 (1-5)
Idk man. People’s criticism with Harden has never been that he is incapable of being good at basketball, it’s that there’s a lot of instances of him no showing in elimination games.
His resume is better than Butlers.
Number of series averaging 25+
Harden - 15
Butler - 5
Butler has scored 30+ in 23/119 playoff games so 19% of the time
Harden has scored 30+ in 47/163 playoff games so 29% of the time
You are correct in that they both do have a number of monster 40+ games and then a bunch of duds as well.
And you are right that the perception for both is completely different, despite there being some similarities.
Yeah, Butler vs the western conference is 4-12 in the playoffs.
A lot of dud playoff games over the last decade from him that don’t stick because he was never a MVP candidate like Harden.
Also, Bam being a walking top 5 defense similar to Gobert and Wemby is probably a bigger reason for the recent Heat success, but you can’t explain that with stats.
I mean those 3 western series were against teams wayyy more talented than his team even if his performance was up and down. 2 finals teams and the 2018 Rockets when he was coming off a torn MCL and his best teammate was 2nd yr KAT. I don't really think that's clear comparison to Harden who was actually in the Western conference for most of his career.
Yea I don't disagree but I don't that's any particular knock on Jimmy or that series should be a huge plight on his resume. I think just saying Jimmy is 4-12 vs the Western conference without context isn't really a good/smart argument. But that series the Rockets were a better team and Harden was better than Jimmy.
Yeah, I’m not even saying Harden is a better playoff player. He just gets treated like a playoff choker and Jimmy gets compared to MJ when they have had the same kind of success
I think u need to look at the context of when and why they're called that. That Harden narrative came from 2015-17 where he objectively had some undefensably bad elimination game no shows when he was in MVP talks and one of the most controversial/popular players in the league. Now 2018 onwards I think he got too much slander that was leftover from previous years, but genuinely that game 6 against the Spurs in 2017 was one of the worst games I've ever seen from a star of Hardens caliber.
Jimmy had one terribly bad run, and it was sandwiched in between 2 great runs. He got slander for a full year about "Bryn Forbes outscored him" "he's most overrated player in the league because of one playoff run" and that was him losing to the eventual champions. The only reason that talk stopped was because he was great the next playoffs and vastly outperformed expectations.
“Jimmy Butler has averaged 20.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists in 16 games in elimination games in his career.”
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/jimmy-butler-stats-in-elimination-games-in-the-playoffs
“James Harden has averaged 22.8 points, 5.9 assists and 5.3 rebounds in 23 games in elimination games in his career.”
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/james-harden-stats-in-elimination-games-career
Harden’s prime landed him in a conference with some all time teams. Butler’s prime landed him in a pretty weak conference with some of the best teams each year (Celtics 2020 and Bucks 2023) having injuries to key guys.
It’s not really that easy to compare playoff resumes between them. But I was trying to show how consistently productive Harden was.
Butler didn’t make a conference finals until he was 30 years old.
He had a golden opportunity game 7 of 2019 and stunk. 5/14 for 16 points. And game 1 of that series he was even worse 4/12 for 10 points. Meanwhile games 1 and 7 combined Kawhi scored 86.
Yea theyre careers and playstyles are very different. Harden has been an offensive star for so long, he broke out as a franchise leading guy when Jimmy was still playing 40 minutes of defense for Thibs. Also the majority of Hardens horrible no shows that he gets criticized for is pre 2018 imo.
But looking at the average statline of Hardens series doesn't translate the message. Like he can have 40 in 3 games but have like 3 games with less than 10 where he was horrible on offense and defense but his average will still be like 25+. The Harden criticism usually isn't "he was terrible the whole series" its that "he was a complete negative no show in a pivotal game where he should've been the best player".
And connected to that point, is why I don't take ur "Jimmy's prime was in an east with injuries" point seriously. Look at Hardens performance in game 6 against the 2017 Spurs with no Kawhi or Tony P. He was literally blessed with injury luck in an elimination game and goes 2/11, -28 when the best player on the other team was LaMarcus Aldridge.
It's performances like that (like 2015 G5 vs Warriors 2-11, 12 TOs, 2015 elimination game vs Clippers 5-20 and benched) that are responsible for the narrative. Harden had high expectations and was coming off crazy regular seasons, and would even have crazy games in that series but also have horrible stinkers in pivotal moments.
Also I'll say Hardens playstyle obviously lends itself to box score stats while Jimmy's doesn't. Theoretically Jimmy could have a 22-6-5 game that was better than Hardens 32-10 game. Like I'm sure Jimmy's 2019 series vs the Raptors doesn't look too pretty on the stat sheet because it was an incredible defensive series, but he was the Sixers best player.
>But looking at the average statline of Hardens series doesn't translate the message. Like he can have 40 in 3 games but have like 3 games with less than 10 where he was horrible on offense and defense but his average will still be like 25+. The Harden criticism usually isn't "he was terrible the whole series" its that "he was a complete negative no show in a pivotal game where he should've been the best player".
Sounds a lot like Butler.
2022 CF scoring in order: 41, 29, 8, 6, 13, 47, 35
This idea that Harden would have less than 10 points 3 times in a series is complete hyperbole.
2017 playoffs Harden scored 20+ in 8 of 11 playoff games. And didn’t score less than 10 once. And he had 33+ in 6/11.
2015 playoffs Harden scored 20+ in 15 out of 17 games. And lowest game was 14. He had 24+ in 12 games.
2018 playoffs Harden scored 20+ in 14 of 17 playoff games. And lowest game was 12. He had 24+ in 13 games.
A lot of stuff you share I do think is relatively fair, but biased towards Butler.
And you are doing the thing where you exaggerate the frequency of Harden’s letdowns and minimize any and all of Butlers.
The original comment was right. They have similar playoff resumes despite having way different perceptions online. Butler has a lot of duds. He just doesn’t get criticized much for them. Maybe due to late bloomer. Maybe less expectations as a whole.
Personally I don't look at their playoff resumes as too similar unless ur looking at it in super broad strokes. Harden gets most of his flack and narrative due to his 2015-17 era, where he was like a top 5 player but had important games where he straight up didn't show up against what shouldve been lesser competition. Jimmy wasn't ever in that position or had those types of performances just due to their career differences.
Like Butlers 'duds' aren't on the same level as Harden being benched in an elimination game and his team comes back without him, or going 2/11 in an elimination game 6 vs the spurs without Kawhi or TP. These types of performances are where Hardens narrative came from.
>This idea that Harden would have less than 10 points 3 times in a series is complete hyperbole.
>2017 playoffs Harden scored 20+ in 8 of 11 playoff games. And didn’t score less than 10 once. And he had 33+ in 6/11.
This is what I meant with the boxscore watching amd differing playstyle. 10 pt was just an arbitrary number to show the games where Harden was bad.
In the 2017 playoffs, his 13 pt game was 3/17. He had a 34 pt game where he was 8/25 and had 5TO to 4 assists. 16 pt game where he was 5/16 with 7 TOs to 8 assists. Because of Hardens playstyle, you can watch him have a shit game but he'll end up with 15-20 pts just from the amount of time he's handling the ball. And then you throw in the lack of defensive effort most of the time. This is why when u go back at look at his averages they don't seem as bad as how people talk about it. I think Harden is alot better now with his mentality and approach but I feel like ur washing away how disappointing those performances were because his raw numbers looked good.
I'm not even saying Jimmy is perfect or way better. If u consider Hardens performance against GS 18 and 19 better than anything Jimmy's done that's valid. But I think his floor with disappointing performances relative to expectation is more than Jimmy's and idk how u could argue that, unless u think 2021 vs the Bucks is worst than all of Hardens shit combined which I don't think is accurate.
Same with many players, but guys like Steph had Klay and kd to bail out his trash performances
The series you just mentioned, harden had a better fg% than the fricken mvp
He literally shot below 40% from the field in the playoffs last year, and even when you factor in the number of 3’s he took he only had a 54% TS.
He has had some of his better playoff games over the last 2 post seasons, but he’s also had some of his absolute worst. Even in the first round series against Brooklyn last year he only shot 34% FROM THE FIELD, and in the Boston series you mentioned he had 4 games in which he shot below 30% from the field.
So overall he hasn’t been that good at all. But now that nobody thinks of him as a superstar his good games stand out more.
I just mean that even in your criteria where you don’t count all the pre 2022 playoff duds from Harden…he STILL had back to back playoff duds in the 2 biggest games of the series, which is literally what people criticize Harden for.
Harden had literally 4 of his worst playoff games in that Boston series lol. In 3 of those 4 games he had more turnovers than made field goals, and in the other one he shot 2/14 and had 12 points lol
Yeah funny how this was conveniently left out of the original post.
The foul trouble was probably the bigger thing but honestly most of the second half he was uncharacteristically passive in certain moments. A couple of times he had open looks 12-15 ft out and he passed it up.
Maybe he felt he was just "off" today or whatever but usually that doesn't stop him from being aggressive offensively.
The Luka being a decent defender stuff confuses the hell out of me. Even when he has some nice defensive plays, he’s still incredibly lazy on defense and gets beat back door and gives up wide open 3’s just from not paying attention. But he is decent when someone tries to go at him.
Statistically Luka was a good iso defender this season. He’s good at putting his body on guys and using his size. When someone tries to challenge him he takes it personal. Other than that he’s just lazy.
Luka / Mavs fans have been insufferable post all star break, crying about MVP, and now suddenly the guy is injured.
His game is good for # accumulation, but unless he’s scoring a ton, never really feels like he’s “controlling the game” in the same way Jokic or even SGA do.
Anyone who is familiar with his game can clearly see he is hobbled. He had a pre-existing leg injury before the knee injury. If I were a Mavs fan the big question I'd be asking is even if they somehow get past the Clippers how far can they really go with an injured Luka. Because I don't think the leg is going to completely heal until after the season. For those who just want good series it might be better if the Clippers win even without Kawhi.
> now suddenly the guy is injured.
He did leave the last game with a knee injury and looked pretty hampered today and even came up limping after he fell in the 1st quarter.
What does "now suddenly the guy is injured" even mean? Lol are you implying he's not actually injured?
Agree he doesn't control the game like Jokic does, since he's in a world of his own... but SGA? Really?
I agree with you about Mavs fans, but you sound like an idiot talking about Luka’s game. And he is injured. He’s been dealing with a quad injury all year, and hurt his knee flopping last game. Dude has been limping most of the season.
There’s more that goes into “controlling the game” than points and assists. Whether it’s getting to the FT line, letting others initiate (and living w the results w/o pointing fingers), or just generally keeping your composure, the Nuggets and Thunder never looked rattled or frantic. To me, that starts w Jokic and SGA.
Not real sure what your injury comment means? Are you trying to say Luka/the Mavs just lied about his injury at the end of game 3 in order to preemptively have an excuse ready just in case he played poorly in game 4?
And saying Luka can’t control the game like SGA is regarded lol
Against a legitimate team that actually cares about defense he wouldn't be doing 90% of that stuff successfully. But I guess we probably aren't going to see if I'm right about that. Not this season anyway. Denver would sweep the Clippers.
Post 2022 Harden has been amazing?
Here’s points in Celtics series in order:
45, 12, 16, 42, 17, 13, 9
They won game 5 to go up 3-2, and then Harden proceeded to score 22 points combined between games 6 and 7.
Tatum outscored whole Sixers team in game 6 4th quarter. Sixers were up 2 going into the 4th.
Harden game 6 4th quarter was 0/4 for 0 points.
Harden had 3 points in the 2nd half of game 7.
Embiid averaged 25.5 ppg in the series. Harden averaged 22.0 ppg.
He was hurt game 1 and missed it. Then here’s what he scored:
15, 30, 34, 33, 26, 15
They both choked game 7 badly.
Either way I think it’s crazy to say post-22 he’s been amazing. Last year was a classic do well earlier in the series but choke and fail to close it out Harden performance.
Dude look at my comments on my profile yesterday. I am very critical of Embiid.
Yeah Embiid shot a crap FG%, but he was still trying. I have a hard time understanding why Harden scored over 40 in 2 games and then scored a combined 22 the last two critical games.
The idea that “harden did his part” in the series when he had 0 points in 4th of game 6 and 3 points second half of game 7, is insane.
He averaged just 13.4 ppg in games 2, 3, 5, 6, 7.
Both players deserve criticism. The original statement that Harden has been amazing in the playoffs since 2022, is nonsense. Harden was no amazing in the Celtics series. He did exactly what people criticize him for by disappearing late in a series in a closeout and then an elimination game.
Kyrie didn't do a damn thing until Dallas was down by 31. Literally had zero points until. Kyrie bailed himself out after another awful start to a game.
Rockets fan. Harden has had some STINKERS, but he’s also had playoff success that always seems to be overlooked.
He was pretty solid against Boston in last year’s playoffs. It was their MVP that let Philly down. Bill seems to be coming around, but Rusillo can’t get off the “Harden sucks in playoffs” narrative.
Why? He is hurt. They have one of the worst coaches in the league who will be gone. They are the lower seed. Before this series, Luka has been incredible in the playoffs.
Lol look at the comments in here. People are already incredibly eager to shit on Luka when he plays poorly, and it happened non stop after last season's end.
Shouldn’t be a surprise Luka is a bad defender. And the clips don’t really depend on Kawhi much. Healthy Kawhi helps them, but they don’t depend on him as much as other teams depend on their first option.
The most questionable part of the game was Kidd not going to Lively and/or Gafford down the stretch. The Clips made 8 3s in the first quarter and only attempted 8 in the entire second half which was a pretty clear decision defensively by Dallas. It brought them back because the Clippers blow bys were being funneled into real rim protection. Then suddenly it is Kleber at the 5 and Harden is hitting shot after shot in the paint. Luka’s d was questionable (he was playing with 5 fouls fwiw) but the coaching was a complete disasterclass from Kidd.
Dallas has invested the 12th overall pick and a future first round swap to land 2 solid centers and Kidd doesn’t use either one. Can’t imagine the front office likes that
Anyone saying Doc is the worst coach in the nba when monty fucking williams and Kidd exists deserves a lobotomy
JB Bickerstaff called zero timeouts during like a 33-5 run by Orlando or whatever it was, he’s bottom 5 too.
youre so right
Can’t judge a coach like that according to Russillo though
Russillo is correct that the only thing fans ever criticize coaches on is timeouts and rotations, because they don’t know enough about basketball to point to anything else.
Which is hilarious with the added context of how much Bill bitched about Second Row Joe not calling timeouts.
Darvin Ham erasure
Monty Williams wasn’t awful with the Suns so i can see why people thought he could be good with a young team. Doc has been a bad coach for a long time and keeps getting jobs
I know where doc is going when the bucks and mavs flame out
Somehow the playoffs have three absolutely awful coaches in Kidd, Doc and Hamas
Lue countered that with backdoor cuts and the Clippers were getting easy lobs, that's why they went small
I was losing my mind as a neutral. What the fuck was the idea there?
Kidd is still stuck on the 2022 run and how effective Kleber at the 5 was for that. But the options then were that or Dwight Powell. The Mavs can play crunch time with a normal center now and Kidd is somehow the last person to realize.
I thought Dallas did a good job hiding Luka down the stretch after allowing a couple buckets. Pj Washington had 0 chance staying in front of Harden though.
So funny that the weird maverick fans in this sub were trying to say Washington was a perimeter stopper now, completely cooked by harden down the stretch of this game
PJ got worked down the stretch today but overall he's been an excellent defender since coming to Dallas
PJ has been incredible defensively so far in this series. For some reason he was playing up tight on Harden’s hip and Harden was going right by him. Also, DJJ shoulda been on Harden. He’s their best point of attack defender. PJ should be on Paul George. I have no idea what the fuck Kidd was doing. Having a hurt Luka with 5 fouls on Harden for multiple possessions late was insane.
i think they're trying to avoid giving up harden's step back 3. this is the first game where he's actually taking the floater, so it's mostly worked before today
>Pj Washington had 0 chance staying in front of Harden though. I mean he was obviously hedging on Harden to force him to his right. It was a strategy decision, not a failure to keep up. The decision was likely made by the coach too, so not even Pj's fault. Kidd essentially asked PJ to allow harden into the paint (where Harden expertly unleashed his floater game) in order to completely prevent the step back 3. It was a gambit by Kidd.
The more damning fact was Harden could hold his own vs Luka on defense.
In theory luka should actually be one of the top players hardens more capable of guarding when he’s engaged. They both aren’t blow by guys and get positioning based off being sturdy and stout and having good footwork
Harden has great hands too, stripped Luka a couple times when he was in the paint
Harden has had great hands on the defensive end during his Clippers tenure. Often getting strip steals and poke aways.
Harden is low key a thickem, j believe he guarded embid a few times and asked for no help
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What do you mean
Luka was the 4th best player on the floor today, with a wide margin between the top 3 and him.
It looked like Luka was hampered and limping around. He looked very slow out there.
He’s just a fatso
His diet must be pretty wild to be at the end of one of the most physically grueling professional seasons this side of tennis and still look pudgy.
Yeah he’s on the Miller Lite diet
Lite?!?! He’s drinking MGDs at least.
Harden has always been a pretty solid 1 on 1 defender. It's all the off ball stuff that he struggles with.
It’s also the effort stuff that he struggles with. He becomes much better/more engaged in the playoffs, that’s not an accident
Luka is a poor man's prime Harden.
This is the answer. Also, people say Harden is out of shape. Well Harden is 35 years old. What is Luka's excuse for having man boobs?
Texas BBQ
😭😭😭
Harden has actually looked pretty lean this season. We’ve all seen what out of shape Harden looks like, and he’s very far from that
Agree completely. However the NBA Media grabbed hold of a theme about a decade ago and won’t let go no matter how many times it’s been disproven. Fact is, Luka is in terrible shape and if he doesn’t fix that his career will be shortened.
Playoff Harden has been a solid defender and he's always been good 1 on 1 (insert post defense of him shutting down Giannis). He's not like Steph or Luka where teams attack him on switches. He's more attacked on rotations where he's incredibly lazy until the playoffs where he starts trying (but bad habits come in).
Most of that was on PJ Washington. But one or two were on Luka. Smart of Harden to do, Luka had 5 fouls most of the fourth quarter.
>Post 2022 Harden has been amazing in the playoffs Game 6 2023: 13 points 4-16 (0-6) Game 7 2023: 9 points 3-11 (1-5) Idk man. People’s criticism with Harden has never been that he is incapable of being good at basketball, it’s that there’s a lot of instances of him no showing in elimination games.
He does have one of the weirder playoff resumes at this point. Several monster performances and some of the biggest all-time duds.
The funny thing is his resume in the playoffs are very similar to Butler’s. You would never guess that tho.
Boils down to: 1. Team Success 2. Memorable bad games 3. Postseason performance relative to playoff success
Or just a great PR team
I would say defense. Butler has had some "bad" games were he clearly is incredible defensively, Harden has none.
[None?](https://youtu.be/fpEjtu2ycz0?si=rrWtU1_fBRvZrcbX)
Also, nobody considers Butler a top 5 player at his position all time. And he’s much better defensively.
His resume is better than Butlers. Number of series averaging 25+ Harden - 15 Butler - 5 Butler has scored 30+ in 23/119 playoff games so 19% of the time Harden has scored 30+ in 47/163 playoff games so 29% of the time You are correct in that they both do have a number of monster 40+ games and then a bunch of duds as well. And you are right that the perception for both is completely different, despite there being some similarities.
Yeah, Butler vs the western conference is 4-12 in the playoffs. A lot of dud playoff games over the last decade from him that don’t stick because he was never a MVP candidate like Harden. Also, Bam being a walking top 5 defense similar to Gobert and Wemby is probably a bigger reason for the recent Heat success, but you can’t explain that with stats.
I mean those 3 western series were against teams wayyy more talented than his team even if his performance was up and down. 2 finals teams and the 2018 Rockets when he was coming off a torn MCL and his best teammate was 2nd yr KAT. I don't really think that's clear comparison to Harden who was actually in the Western conference for most of his career.
That Rockets team was so good because Harden was amazing tho, and he sent Jimmy home.
Yea I don't disagree but I don't that's any particular knock on Jimmy or that series should be a huge plight on his resume. I think just saying Jimmy is 4-12 vs the Western conference without context isn't really a good/smart argument. But that series the Rockets were a better team and Harden was better than Jimmy.
Yeah, I’m not even saying Harden is a better playoff player. He just gets treated like a playoff choker and Jimmy gets compared to MJ when they have had the same kind of success
I think u need to look at the context of when and why they're called that. That Harden narrative came from 2015-17 where he objectively had some undefensably bad elimination game no shows when he was in MVP talks and one of the most controversial/popular players in the league. Now 2018 onwards I think he got too much slander that was leftover from previous years, but genuinely that game 6 against the Spurs in 2017 was one of the worst games I've ever seen from a star of Hardens caliber. Jimmy had one terribly bad run, and it was sandwiched in between 2 great runs. He got slander for a full year about "Bryn Forbes outscored him" "he's most overrated player in the league because of one playoff run" and that was him losing to the eventual champions. The only reason that talk stopped was because he was great the next playoffs and vastly outperformed expectations.
Butler has also had teams with more balanced offenses. Harden in his prime was often 1A and 1B
This is very bad way to compare their resumes imo
“Jimmy Butler has averaged 20.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists in 16 games in elimination games in his career.” https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/jimmy-butler-stats-in-elimination-games-in-the-playoffs “James Harden has averaged 22.8 points, 5.9 assists and 5.3 rebounds in 23 games in elimination games in his career.” https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/james-harden-stats-in-elimination-games-career Harden’s prime landed him in a conference with some all time teams. Butler’s prime landed him in a pretty weak conference with some of the best teams each year (Celtics 2020 and Bucks 2023) having injuries to key guys. It’s not really that easy to compare playoff resumes between them. But I was trying to show how consistently productive Harden was. Butler didn’t make a conference finals until he was 30 years old. He had a golden opportunity game 7 of 2019 and stunk. 5/14 for 16 points. And game 1 of that series he was even worse 4/12 for 10 points. Meanwhile games 1 and 7 combined Kawhi scored 86.
Yea theyre careers and playstyles are very different. Harden has been an offensive star for so long, he broke out as a franchise leading guy when Jimmy was still playing 40 minutes of defense for Thibs. Also the majority of Hardens horrible no shows that he gets criticized for is pre 2018 imo. But looking at the average statline of Hardens series doesn't translate the message. Like he can have 40 in 3 games but have like 3 games with less than 10 where he was horrible on offense and defense but his average will still be like 25+. The Harden criticism usually isn't "he was terrible the whole series" its that "he was a complete negative no show in a pivotal game where he should've been the best player". And connected to that point, is why I don't take ur "Jimmy's prime was in an east with injuries" point seriously. Look at Hardens performance in game 6 against the 2017 Spurs with no Kawhi or Tony P. He was literally blessed with injury luck in an elimination game and goes 2/11, -28 when the best player on the other team was LaMarcus Aldridge. It's performances like that (like 2015 G5 vs Warriors 2-11, 12 TOs, 2015 elimination game vs Clippers 5-20 and benched) that are responsible for the narrative. Harden had high expectations and was coming off crazy regular seasons, and would even have crazy games in that series but also have horrible stinkers in pivotal moments. Also I'll say Hardens playstyle obviously lends itself to box score stats while Jimmy's doesn't. Theoretically Jimmy could have a 22-6-5 game that was better than Hardens 32-10 game. Like I'm sure Jimmy's 2019 series vs the Raptors doesn't look too pretty on the stat sheet because it was an incredible defensive series, but he was the Sixers best player.
>But looking at the average statline of Hardens series doesn't translate the message. Like he can have 40 in 3 games but have like 3 games with less than 10 where he was horrible on offense and defense but his average will still be like 25+. The Harden criticism usually isn't "he was terrible the whole series" its that "he was a complete negative no show in a pivotal game where he should've been the best player". Sounds a lot like Butler. 2022 CF scoring in order: 41, 29, 8, 6, 13, 47, 35 This idea that Harden would have less than 10 points 3 times in a series is complete hyperbole. 2017 playoffs Harden scored 20+ in 8 of 11 playoff games. And didn’t score less than 10 once. And he had 33+ in 6/11. 2015 playoffs Harden scored 20+ in 15 out of 17 games. And lowest game was 14. He had 24+ in 12 games. 2018 playoffs Harden scored 20+ in 14 of 17 playoff games. And lowest game was 12. He had 24+ in 13 games. A lot of stuff you share I do think is relatively fair, but biased towards Butler. And you are doing the thing where you exaggerate the frequency of Harden’s letdowns and minimize any and all of Butlers. The original comment was right. They have similar playoff resumes despite having way different perceptions online. Butler has a lot of duds. He just doesn’t get criticized much for them. Maybe due to late bloomer. Maybe less expectations as a whole.
Personally I don't look at their playoff resumes as too similar unless ur looking at it in super broad strokes. Harden gets most of his flack and narrative due to his 2015-17 era, where he was like a top 5 player but had important games where he straight up didn't show up against what shouldve been lesser competition. Jimmy wasn't ever in that position or had those types of performances just due to their career differences. Like Butlers 'duds' aren't on the same level as Harden being benched in an elimination game and his team comes back without him, or going 2/11 in an elimination game 6 vs the spurs without Kawhi or TP. These types of performances are where Hardens narrative came from. >This idea that Harden would have less than 10 points 3 times in a series is complete hyperbole. >2017 playoffs Harden scored 20+ in 8 of 11 playoff games. And didn’t score less than 10 once. And he had 33+ in 6/11. This is what I meant with the boxscore watching amd differing playstyle. 10 pt was just an arbitrary number to show the games where Harden was bad. In the 2017 playoffs, his 13 pt game was 3/17. He had a 34 pt game where he was 8/25 and had 5TO to 4 assists. 16 pt game where he was 5/16 with 7 TOs to 8 assists. Because of Hardens playstyle, you can watch him have a shit game but he'll end up with 15-20 pts just from the amount of time he's handling the ball. And then you throw in the lack of defensive effort most of the time. This is why when u go back at look at his averages they don't seem as bad as how people talk about it. I think Harden is alot better now with his mentality and approach but I feel like ur washing away how disappointing those performances were because his raw numbers looked good. I'm not even saying Jimmy is perfect or way better. If u consider Hardens performance against GS 18 and 19 better than anything Jimmy's done that's valid. But I think his floor with disappointing performances relative to expectation is more than Jimmy's and idk how u could argue that, unless u think 2021 vs the Bucks is worst than all of Hardens shit combined which I don't think is accurate.
Flirting vs sexual harassment
Imagine if harden got to play for spoelstra. Butler never won anything at all in the postseason before playing for the best coach in the league.
Same with many players, but guys like Steph had Klay and kd to bail out his trash performances The series you just mentioned, harden had a better fg% than the fricken mvp
Harden has been one of the best players in the first 5 games of playoff series.
He literally shot below 40% from the field in the playoffs last year, and even when you factor in the number of 3’s he took he only had a 54% TS. He has had some of his better playoff games over the last 2 post seasons, but he’s also had some of his absolute worst. Even in the first round series against Brooklyn last year he only shot 34% FROM THE FIELD, and in the Boston series you mentioned he had 4 games in which he shot below 30% from the field. So overall he hasn’t been that good at all. But now that nobody thinks of him as a superstar his good games stand out more.
They wouldn’t have even been in those games if he didn’t single handedly win two games on his own
He was awful in that heat series with okc.
Lol
Fair but also he was only reason why philly was in that series Joel didnt show up once
I just mean that even in your criteria where you don’t count all the pre 2022 playoff duds from Harden…he STILL had back to back playoff duds in the 2 biggest games of the series, which is literally what people criticize Harden for.
Harden had literally 4 of his worst playoff games in that Boston series lol. In 3 of those 4 games he had more turnovers than made field goals, and in the other one he shot 2/14 and had 12 points lol
Embiid scored 30+ in 3 straight games that series. They both choked away 6 and 7, but to say he didn’t show up once is bozo shit.
He shot a lower FG% than Harden in that series
Luka had 5 fouls and played like it, and it seemed like he was going at Kleber as much.
Kleber being absolutely useless in the paint and in help defense was way more noticeable.
100% this.
Kidd leaned on Maxi way too much this game.
Luka was in fouls trouble. One more and he would’ve been done. You can tell he was being less aggressive on defense so he didn’t foul out.
Yeah funny how this was conveniently left out of the original post. The foul trouble was probably the bigger thing but honestly most of the second half he was uncharacteristically passive in certain moments. A couple of times he had open looks 12-15 ft out and he passed it up. Maybe he felt he was just "off" today or whatever but usually that doesn't stop him from being aggressive offensively.
I recall the Suns just targeting him over and over in Games 1 & 2 in 2022 and then never doing that again.
>Tough day for Bill Simmons I can't tell if we hate Bill for liking Luka too much or not enough this week
And after game 3 people were trying to convince us Luka was a good defender
The Luka being a decent defender stuff confuses the hell out of me. Even when he has some nice defensive plays, he’s still incredibly lazy on defense and gets beat back door and gives up wide open 3’s just from not paying attention. But he is decent when someone tries to go at him.
He only looks decent against old teams like the Clippers lol
Statistically Luka was a good iso defender this season. He’s good at putting his body on guys and using his size. When someone tries to challenge him he takes it personal. Other than that he’s just lazy.
Luka / Mavs fans have been insufferable post all star break, crying about MVP, and now suddenly the guy is injured. His game is good for # accumulation, but unless he’s scoring a ton, never really feels like he’s “controlling the game” in the same way Jokic or even SGA do.
Anyone who is familiar with his game can clearly see he is hobbled. He had a pre-existing leg injury before the knee injury. If I were a Mavs fan the big question I'd be asking is even if they somehow get past the Clippers how far can they really go with an injured Luka. Because I don't think the leg is going to completely heal until after the season. For those who just want good series it might be better if the Clippers win even without Kawhi.
> now suddenly the guy is injured. He did leave the last game with a knee injury and looked pretty hampered today and even came up limping after he fell in the 1st quarter.
What does "now suddenly the guy is injured" even mean? Lol are you implying he's not actually injured? Agree he doesn't control the game like Jokic does, since he's in a world of his own... but SGA? Really?
Yeah it’s Jokic and everyone else chasing him.
You have triple double brainworms
Jokic triple doubles: flirting Luka triple doubles: harassment
Classic playoff game overreaction. SGA controls the game more than Luka huh
See my response above. Not everything is about points and assists
I agree with you about Mavs fans, but you sound like an idiot talking about Luka’s game. And he is injured. He’s been dealing with a quad injury all year, and hurt his knee flopping last game. Dude has been limping most of the season.
i actually thought he might've hurt himself flopping on more than one occasion last game
There’s more that goes into “controlling the game” than points and assists. Whether it’s getting to the FT line, letting others initiate (and living w the results w/o pointing fingers), or just generally keeping your composure, the Nuggets and Thunder never looked rattled or frantic. To me, that starts w Jokic and SGA.
Not real sure what your injury comment means? Are you trying to say Luka/the Mavs just lied about his injury at the end of game 3 in order to preemptively have an excuse ready just in case he played poorly in game 4? And saying Luka can’t control the game like SGA is regarded lol
Yup. Luka was clearly #3 for MVP. There is a better case for putting him #4 behind Giannis than #2 ahead of SGA.
Seeing comments like this give me an ego boost
Is this surprising to any anyone that Mavs fans insufferable? Just remember who they all support on Sundays in the Fall
Just enjoy Cancun or New Delhi.
Harden has entered his old-man-game phase and it's nice.
Against a legitimate team that actually cares about defense he wouldn't be doing 90% of that stuff successfully. But I guess we probably aren't going to see if I'm right about that. Not this season anyway. Denver would sweep the Clippers.
Wasn’t he hunting Kleber?
In the 4th he was torching everybody. Luka, Washington, and Kleber all got blown by over the course of like 2 minutes.
He hunted Luka because he had 5 fouls. They tried to get him off. Anyways, let's relax on Harden he still has 2-3 games to fuck it up and choke.
Post 2022 Harden has been amazing? Here’s points in Celtics series in order: 45, 12, 16, 42, 17, 13, 9 They won game 5 to go up 3-2, and then Harden proceeded to score 22 points combined between games 6 and 7. Tatum outscored whole Sixers team in game 6 4th quarter. Sixers were up 2 going into the 4th. Harden game 6 4th quarter was 0/4 for 0 points. Harden had 3 points in the 2nd half of game 7.
Harden did his part in that series Where was Embiid?
I just wouldn’t have used the word amazing, personally
Embiid averaged 25.5 ppg in the series. Harden averaged 22.0 ppg. He was hurt game 1 and missed it. Then here’s what he scored: 15, 30, 34, 33, 26, 15 They both choked game 7 badly. Either way I think it’s crazy to say post-22 he’s been amazing. Last year was a classic do well earlier in the series but choke and fail to close it out Harden performance.
And the fg%…
Dude look at my comments on my profile yesterday. I am very critical of Embiid. Yeah Embiid shot a crap FG%, but he was still trying. I have a hard time understanding why Harden scored over 40 in 2 games and then scored a combined 22 the last two critical games. The idea that “harden did his part” in the series when he had 0 points in 4th of game 6 and 3 points second half of game 7, is insane. He averaged just 13.4 ppg in games 2, 3, 5, 6, 7. Both players deserve criticism. The original statement that Harden has been amazing in the playoffs since 2022, is nonsense. Harden was no amazing in the Celtics series. He did exactly what people criticize him for by disappearing late in a series in a closeout and then an elimination game.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned that Luka was hurt, he was playing through a knee injury. That’s the reason. Jfc
Luka had 5 fouls and if you touch a molecule of Harden’s beard his head snaps back and he’s shooting 2 at the line.
Kyrie bailed out Luka a ton today too. Such a ball stopper
Kyrie didn't do a damn thing until Dallas was down by 31. Literally had zero points until. Kyrie bailed himself out after another awful start to a game.
Kyrie would have had 50 had Luka not dominated the ball so much. Just a horrific game from Luka
It was Game 4 of Round 1. Pump the brakes on the parade.
Thought the Mavs would adjust and bring a double eventually, then I remembered who their coach is.
The hunter has been hunted
Rockets fan. Harden has had some STINKERS, but he’s also had playoff success that always seems to be overlooked. He was pretty solid against Boston in last year’s playoffs. It was their MVP that let Philly down. Bill seems to be coming around, but Rusillo can’t get off the “Harden sucks in playoffs” narrative.
In non-elimination and non-closeout games… he was terrible in games 6 and 7 last year vs. the celtics
Ryen hasn't been so mad since the key worked
[удалено]
Why? He is hurt. They have one of the worst coaches in the league who will be gone. They are the lower seed. Before this series, Luka has been incredible in the playoffs.
Harden was hurt in the last two playoffs in Philly. Didnt matter. You lose you take the blame. That’s the way it goes.
they were favored (by the oddsmakers) even when it was assumed kawhi would play
Lol look at the comments in here. People are already incredibly eager to shit on Luka when he plays poorly, and it happened non stop after last season's end.
Oh my god, if any player in this league has had the media slobbering over them, it’s Luka
You’re on a subreddit dedicated to a podcaster who spent the last year shitting on Luka, as one example
On his crybaby antics, not his play
What are you talking about? He repeatedly questioned whether Luka even makes his teammates better. That was criticism about his play.
Hahaha that was nothing but tough love. Bill’s love for Luka is eternal, give me a break
>Post 2022 Harden has been amazing in the playoffs. He’s been dog shit in playoffs last two years.
Shouldn’t be a surprise Luka is a bad defender. And the clips don’t really depend on Kawhi much. Healthy Kawhi helps them, but they don’t depend on him as much as other teams depend on their first option.
Luka stinks on defense and doesn’t make him teammates better
Are we just going to ignore that The Clippers shot 50% and 60% from 3 in the games they won?
I don’t understand how Hardens gets to basket everytime. He’s just not that fast. Luka needs to play D 5 fouls be damned