On the verge of elimination, Harden sets a NBA record 13 turnovers in the 2015 playoffs
2016 steals champ no less!
Harden also steals champ too! Just a few years later
A bunch of those clips involved lock down D from none other than 2-way Steph.
And the Rockets had no other capable ballhandlers lol. Like with the roster he was competing with, it was a fuckin miracle they were a 2 seed and made the WCF.
This whole run is a credit to Harden and any time people post slander about it just don't know basketball. nobody would get shit on today for putting up that kind of team success with a comparable roster
Anybody with 13 turnovers would get criticism even in a regular season game.
I'll go through the entire video later but the first few are simply unforced, boneheaded plays - travelling trying to adjust the feet to go up, turning it over in transition trying to force the pass, doing... whatever that was on the 3rd one, foul baiting I guess, etc etc. I remember watching that game and thinking that about almost everyone one of his TOs. Sure, carry job to get them there, but this is a legendarily, notoriously bad game.
99% of the time non-Rockets fans reference anything from 2015 it's to talk shit about him. That's my point. I don't know if it's because the Warriors fans were just full of 13 year Olds that took over the internet or what, but it was a wildly impressive run that is only brought up to mention his few bad games lol.
People ignore game 7 vs LAC to bring up game 6 even though game 7s are the premiere "clutch" game, and against the Warriors people ignore that his only bad games came after insanely good games cuz the mfer had no legs left after carrying a HORRIBLE roster to the 2 seed
My comment was about the entire run. Not just one game.
Dude just stop. Dwight Howard was the best player against the clippers. 18-14 on 59% shooting vs Harden 25-8 on less than 40% shooting, not to mention being benched in the pivotal game 6 comeback.
Dwight only took dunks his efficiency is misleading but yeah he played a decent series. How was he against bogut and GSW? Terrible
You mean dirks best Robin in 20 years wasn't a capable ball handler? Lol
At 40? The fuck?
Lol not in 2015 he wasnt
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/tov_game.html
The list of highest turnover games is largely just a list of incredibly good players.
Much like the list of missed field goal leaders - You don't get a green light like that unless you're a remarkable player.
I don't see Jordan there!
GOAT.
Some other guy had 11 though
Yup, in hindsight Mudiay was a bad pick.
what surprised me the most is that caitlin clark is on the verge of setting the worst TO per game in the history of professional basketball.
Iowa’s pace of play was very fast, and they had a core of players that were together for years and had terrific chemistry with Clark. She really pushed in transition and that chemistry helped a lot of her riskier passes find their targets
I’m not surprised at all her turnover rate is extremely high. I knew she’d be trying to make those types of passes on the Fever and it would be a learning curve. The turnaround between the end of NCAA season and beginning of the W season is very short. The Fever also had a ton of games scheduled close together and it was apparent they were lacking time to simply practice and gel together
And then there's Ben Simmons...
Well, I mean... He was an All-Star and All-Defensive player at the time.
Yup don’t disrespect my antiwork king 😤😤
If I could tell he sucked at the time, then everyone else sure as shit should've been able to see to. I am a lil biased tho tbf.
There was quite literally no team in the west that was beating this Warriors team… this is hardly a Harden low light. The fact they even made it this far is downright impressive. I remember being on this sub at the time and NO ONE gave the rockets a serious chance.
Early this series Josh Smith also fell and banged his head into Dwight’s knee at some point and both got hurt to a slight extent.
They probably shouldn’t have been there considering the Clippers choked but the Rockets might have taken an extra game in that scenario and lost in six maybe.
What about the 2014 trailblazers?
Oh man… my favorite Blazer team ever. Even more than the WCF run and even more than the Roy days which is what got me into basketball. I still think that 2015 team could have made a serious run if Wes didn’t tear his Achilles. And if LMA had stayed after that with Dame… I do think that could have at least been an equivalent challenge to the Warriors in the same vein of the Spurs/Thunder/Rockets. Not sure if they would have knocked them off, but LMA was seriously the missing piece we could never replace.
This 2015 run was crazy impressive by Harden. On the first "verge of elimination" he dropped 45 pts on dead legs, and in game 2 he was a +12 in a 1 pt loss potentially dragging this series 6 when they were completely outclassed.
Had no business getting that Rockets team a 2 seed, upset the Clippers in 7 (where he took over the 2nd half to complete the upset), made the WCF with that dogshit roster because of his heroics, and basically every bad game in the playoffs he had was because he had to have a monster game the game before and was toast from the carry job.
People that obsess over lowlights from this run just don't know shit about basketball
What about against the trailer blazers the year before?
Dwight and Harden vs a lower seed out in the first round?
I’d love to see some ”But no one was beating the trailblazers that year” comments lol
Nah he and our nonexistent power forwards absolutely shit the bed. It was so bad. It took years before my opinion of Harden changed.
Howard v Aldridge was legendary though. People remember the Dame shot, but not the battle of the bigs.
Ehhhhh this is revisionist. That series was projected to be pretty even, with the Rockets maybe the slight favorites. And in all reality if Dame doesn’t hit that shot it was going back to Houston for game 7 that would have been a toss up.
The Rockets weren't suppose to go far in the playoffs anyways. Lillard hit a sick game winner.
Would love to hear your excuses for all the other game 6s and 7s harden shat the bed cuz he was “toast from the carry job” or whatever else smh
Edit: thanks for the block u/CP3shamstring glad you’re focused on factual and unbiased ball talk /s 😂
I mean to start, he was 2-1 in game 7s before his hamstring injury. almost any series yall obsess over were games at the end of 4-1 losses where his team was heavily outmatched, with the bad game usually coming after a great one and him just not having any energy left to carry bums
doesn't matter if he averages 35 ppg and loses you bozos still find a way to change the parameters.
2017 was his only real choke, but that team was horrible and not going anywhere anyway lmao.
He wasn't losing vs teams he was expected to beat. He was usually outgunned or had an injured team. The dude hasn't had a healthy roster beside him since before 2018.
So yeah his bad for not being able to drag depleted teams to the finals while his opponent was stacking the deck with 4 allstars
He set the nba record for turnovers and was 2-11 (he had like 3 more 2-11 games in the playoffs). That was a god awful performance.
Was also benched when the Rockets made the game 6 comeback. I know you a Harden fan but cmon. If this is crazy impressive then Steph’s 2015 must be unheard of impressive.
Was also benched when the Rockets made the game 6 comeback.
good thing there was a game 7 where he scored 20 in the 2nd half to complete the upset? or do you only give credit for closing out a series when its someone u like
curry has done the same shit before, like in 2019, where he was mid to ass for most of the series but then had a 2nd half like in game 6. only difference is they were favored the entire time, the rockets were underdogs vs the clippers.
Steph had the deepest team in the NBA in 2015. Harden had Jason Terry and Josh smith. The fuck are you even going on about. You won’t talk about game 7 against the clippers where harden lead us to a win or any of the games against golden state where harden kept it super close
he lost in the playoffs to the warriors with steph out and the spurs with kawhi out
2017 was bad, that was in my post.
But what the fuck are we doing acting like every time we lost it was his fault or that his team was expected to go anywhere?
You guys can't just call every single thing a choke lmao. They were already down 3-1.
The 2016 Rockets were playing Motiejunas, Trevor Ariza, Patrick Beverly, and Dwight Howard.
Those 4 were a combined 8 for 35. James Harden was 12 for 23.
Cut the shit lol
Don't forget with KD out in 2019
What do you mean without KD lmao
KD missed 1 game. Prior to that, in games 1 through 5, he averaged 36 ppg when every game was within 5 pts. Curry was having a mid off with CP3 and Harden was averaging 35.
KD went out near the end of the 3rd while the game was essentially tied, and Harden didn't capitalize. The next game, at home, Harden doesn't take advantage of a cold Steph game early on, allows it to get close, and then chokes the game away.
Harden was great that series and saying anything otherwise is just fucking hating.
Harden maintained his series average both of those games. He had 12 pts in the 4th of game 6, and at the end of game 5 was getting hard doubled but made the right pass and they scored on almost every possession down the stretch. The ones they didn't was a like PJ Tucker out of bounds type shit
Obsessions with calling everything a choke even when it was a great performance is fucking c o r n y
"Where he took over in the 2nd half to complete the upset." The revisionist history is crazy lol. He was benched and sulking on the bench before getting bailed out by Josh Smith and Corey Brewer. Harden is an amazing player but I'll never be convinced that he wasn't a huge playoff choker
You are so caught up in your hating you don't even realize you're talking about game 6. I'm talking about game 7, which you probably completely erased from your memory
Sounds a lot like Brunson this year
It’s not really an upset when the #2 seed Rockets beat the #3 seed clippers.
Warriors, Spurs and Clippers were the biggest contenders in the Westin 2015, Rockets were overperfomers and underdogs compared to them, especially after Clippers beat defending champ Spurs.
a higher seed beating a lower seed is not an upset. There were no injuries given for why the clippers were a lower seed. It’s objectively not really an upset.
Just say you didn't watch basketball then
Honestly I don’t remember watching that series. But the objective fact remains - a higher seed beating a Lower seed is not really an upset.
this is just missing the point entirely lol
the rockets overachieved with their seeding directly because of harden, not because they were a better team. they were something like 10 wins over their pre-season over/under win total because of harden dragging them that far. they also had the exact same record, so saying "higher seed" is overselling it.
Their top 10 minutes played after Harden went like this:
James Harden @ 2981,
Trevor Ariza @ 2930,
Donatas Motiejkunas @ 2037,
Patrick Beverly @ 1727,
Jason Terry @ 1641,
Corey Brewer @ 1407,
Josh Smish @ 1404,
Dwight Howard @ 1223,
Terrence Jones @ 889,
Joey Dorsey @ 854,
and Kostas Papanikolau @ 795.
the clippers were +900 title favorites at the start of the season, the rockets were +2200, which is not a surprise when you look at that roster.
the years harden was getting called a choker, his teams had like +16000 title odds. they weren't even close to considered contenders but haters have just decided that that not beating astronomical odds against you means you're a choker when it comes to harden. even in 2018, they were only +2150 while the warriors were favored against the field
That’s all well and good. But calling an upset when a higher seed beats a lower seed makes no sense. Take your feelings out of it. It’s objectively not an upset.
Call it a surprise or an unexpected. But it’s not an upset.
dog. betting odds determine upsets. not seeding.
you're creating your own rules here lmao. Even in game 7 the Clippers were favored.
No it really doesn’t. In March madness everybody can assume that a 12 seed will UPSET a 5 seed and that’s the way the odds will go. I don’t think you understand what an upset means. Sure clippers might have been favored to upset the rockets. But they didn’t.
You are, quite literally, making shit up.
Go and read articles from the series if you need to. It was always considered an upset and the Clippers were always considered favorites.
Pre-season title odds heavily favored the Clippers. The Playoff odds before they started had the Clippers finishing higher than the Rockets. The series odds had the Clippers favored. Even game 7 had the Clippers favored.
The Rockets winning wasd absolutely an upset and they were always the underdogs in that series. Shut it lmao
Crazy to think this was 9 years ago!
I'm not going to defend this performance but high usage = higher turnovers. Especially when you do not have a second star that can handle the ball. The second best ball handler on the Rockets in that game was... idk Jason Terry? Trevor Ariza? Pablo Prigioni? It wasn't pretty
Harden is forever good in my book for what he did for us. H town legend forever
Me too. No issues whatsoever with him wanting out when Tilman took over. He gave me the most entertaining basketball I've seen since childhood if not ever. I loved Jordan and Hakeem but Harden was more fun than Hakeem and Jordan wasn't a Rocket.
If Chris Paul didn't get hurt they were beating the Warriors
God said fuck no Chris Paul ain't winning a chip
Facts
Can I get the invite to the hypothetical 2018 parade?
If Embiid doesn't get hurt Harden wins his chip with us. Unlucky us both
If Embiid doesn’t drastically underperform in the playoffs. FIFY
Was it the fouling out on purpose in an elimination game so he could stop getting pantsed by the Spurs that put him over the top for you?
Let it go my dear
Bruh I swear spurs fans are the worst trash talkers on this sub because they all live in the past and trash talk like it’s still 2018 😂 you can let Harden go and not let him live rent free in your head bro, he’s not even in your division anymore
how did that work out for the Spurs? that was right before Kawhi told Pop to go fuck himself and left to the winter wasteland rather than play another game for San Antonio isn’t it?
Yup, also the fact he had carried that team throughout the year and into the freaking WCF. Dude was fucking gassed.
OP your comment history is unhinged dawg you need help 😂
it’s remarkable how obsessed with Harden, Warriors and Thunder fans are.
Warriors fans? We give Harden his props, those were great teams that met a greater team.
I wouldn’t even say Warriors fans because they knew how good those teams were in the moment, there were no serious threats. OP is a Mavs fan and Harden COOKED them in the first round that year.
Harden owned the Mavs the entire time he was in Houston. We got that pathetic rant from one of their local TV analysts, and Dallas fans had to wait until Harden was out of his prime and off the Rockets before being able to talk shit.
Yep, don’t get me wrong, Harden was literally Hitler in my eyes back then.
But to deny his greatness in the moment would be like denying Giannis or Luka right now. Harden IMO was a top 3 player in the league in his prime. After Lebron and Steph you could really switch out him and KD for third depending on the season.
Ah yes the rondo series
No serious threats? They were a CP3 injury and a historic cold streak away from losing in their prime
Yeah on second thought you’re right, that was a serious threat and the Warriors were even better at that point with KD obviously.
I think Warrior fans are just fine with Harden. Steph beat Harden every single time in the playoffs. 4-0.
He was a terrorist but I respect him A lot
Don’t forget Mavs fans, like op
Digging through his post history to find out who he's a fan of is not the own you think it is.....
It literally takes 5 seconds to see he’s a Mavs fan…doesn’t take much “digging”. All he does is make hate/ rage bait posts of players and teams he dislikes.
Why do people think looking at comment history is a self own. It’s literally how the UI is designed
Also like if you’re going to talk shit without flair it’s a fair question to ask what team one is supporting.
anytime someone posts a harden highlight, another person has to post a low light. Such a pathetic sub
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what's wrong with posting a highlight?
this thread would make sense if the Rockets fan posted some egregious lowlight from wemby, but that post wasn't like that at all
it's five months old, literally only posted because wemby had a good game lmao it's pathetic
there's something pathetic here and it isn't the highlights
I PROMISE people would rather see highlights posted than whatever you and the OP are trying to do
I didn't know that, not on this sub all day. I also don't think that post was trying to shit on wemby dude, it's more of a highlight for and old harden to pull that off on a great defender in wemby.
Plus it's also a sick recovery by wemby to almost contest it. It's almost a dual highlight
Yeah it wasn’t a Wemby lowlight at all but u/LongAvocado8155 is charmin ultra soft, saw that OP’s flair and started seething hahaha
This is the same guy that, just in the past couple hours, commented in that Wemby/Harden highlight thread that he “doesn’t even think of the rockets tbh”. Yet here he is showing that Harden and rockets fans live rent-free in his head LOL 😂
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Bruh what I’m not a rockets fan, why would I care about him “ditching” 😂 you adamantly claim you “don’t think about” them 😂 yeah bro, you don’t think about them at all I’m sure 👍
Like I said elsewhere ITT: spurs fans are the worst trash talkers in this sub because they still live in 2018 and can only bring up shit from the 2010s lmaoooo
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Don’t you got more rockets-focused threads to comment under? After all, you think about them a lot
What wemby highlight?
Always respect Hardens greatness, plenty of room to appreciate others without dragging others down. Fuck OP and fuck fans like u/LongAvocado8155
Bad call on the first play, don't see a travel there. The right foot stayed planted
The first of many infamous Harden playoff performances.
Harden gers some insane reddit glaze
Classic Harden performance
Honestly that GS defense was insane. Doesn’t get talked about enough when they’re brought up. Also this era rockets team and Harden was downright scary to face.
Lmao for the 2nd one where 3 of his teammates don't even bother leaving the key and just stand around waiting for the ball to come back their way instead of contributing to the play
Steph is in more of these plays than I would have thought
From the comments seen it was always GSW's opponents getting credit for losing
I never seen such attitude to other champions squad
It reminds me of Mike Tyson's career who never got credit for beating someone, but his losses is the only thing people remembered about him
I love the pettiness 🫡
" I want to be remembered as a winner " - James Harden
Harden being Harden. Sometimes he can be the greatest player on the court, and others, you get this.
comparing this fraud to Luka should get your computer taken away
Bra Luka hasn't hit Hardens peak
Playoff Luka > playoff Harden
Idc, he's still top 15 all-time
maybe top 30 - top 15 is stiff competition
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I’m a big believer that Harden is insanely underrated, but ain’t no way he’s top 15
I'd be hesitant to even put him in the top 30, let alone 15.
Not one bit of playoff success except being praised for LOSING to the Warriors
thats the Roarcle effect home court used to mean somethin
Yeah, that series was brutal for Harden. Iggy and Dray were like a defensive nightmare
Harden easily one of the biggest choke artists I’ve ever seen
Idk who you are OP but you just made an enemy for life
Man he’s such an overrated plug
Was this the game that cost Kevin McHale his job?
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being defended by iggy and dray in 2015 was a torture chamber.
you will be forced to pass then you get steph curry at that time who was always playing passing lanes.