How was Harden from Tianwang Mountain lost?

Everyone says that Harden will be bad in the key game. Harden, who averaged 11+5+7 games in G5 in the playoffs, used 3 of 9 shots, 11 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists in the team's lowest performance in the first round of this year, confirming that the people's eyes are still bright.

And Harden's own eyes have lost his spirit.

Harden has accumulated a good reputation for a season and was defeated back to his original form in just one game. But Harden tried to break this law. At the beginning of the first quarter, he was still full of fighting spirit. The TNT commentator used this sentence to describe the bearded man: "Harden started attack mode very early tonight."

In fact, Harden in the first quarter of G5 was indeed the offensive engine of the Clippers, and he scored the highest 6 points in the team through 2 of 4 shots. But entering the second quarter, Harden began to stealth in the Denver Plateau...

game time of 3 minutes and 49 seconds, 0 shots, 0 rebounds and 0 assists, which is obviously not normal for a large core with the ball. As for a player from being very motivated to doing nothing, there must be some factors that lead to such a huge change in contrast.

When Harden "turned offensive mode early" in the first quarter, the Nuggets coaching staff must have smelled a trace of danger. They knew that Harden could not be turned on, and then they made the extremely correct decision - to accumulate all defensive resources to prevent Harden.

How to defend Harden is no longer a new thing. As long as Harden cannot play pick-and-roll and cannot defend one-on-one name, he will be no different from a senior infantry.

So, what the Nuggets did was nothing more than not allowing Harden to easily launch a pick-and-roll, and not allowing him to easily play one-on-one singles. The point is that they have viable defensive design and defensive resources to achieve this goal.

When Harden called for cover to play pick-and-roll, the Nuggets did not snatch the ball holder on the ground, but adopted a way of "fighting wits and courage" with Harden. Because they know that Harden is a useful dealer, the defender cannot expose his intentions too early.

Nuggets' defensemen all "leave room for mistakes" for themselves. They will not pounce on Harden like hungry wolves, so as not to expose Harden's reckless actions to connect his teammates' exit route. Or you can say that this is a dynamic defense method, the purpose is to always keep a heavy defense around Harden and let Harden stop.

This round, Harden's idea was correct. He didn't want Simmons pick-and-roll. Because he knew that the Nuggets would attack, he wanted Bogdan to pick-and-roll, so he had the opportunity to create more space. Although the result was not

On the other hand, the young and fierce Braun enjoyed the "hard task" of single defense Harden. The 35-year-old Harden lost the explosive power of getting rid of Braun, and it was not easy to rely on his body to push away this white man who looked like a bully in the American campus.

Even after this round of series, we can only pay one foul for the entire series, and defend the former MVP to Braun, who was 5 of 17, and awarded the title of "Harden Terminator".

When the above two things were successfully executed, Harden, who was unable to successfully execute the pick-and-roll and could not challenge the defender alone, could only be forced to hang the bottom corner and take risks to pass the ball. This has resulted in a result: the Clippers must let other players besides Leonard share Harden's tough tasks.

And let other players who are not as good as Harden decide on the game, this is something the Nuggets are willing to see. The

round usage rate is a indicator that can reflect the proportion of players participating in the offense. Zubac and Bogdanovic G5's round usage rates are 26% and 26.8%, respectively, both of which have reached new highs in this round of series. The Harden G5's round usage rate is only 20.7%, which is lower than the average of the series, which is enough to illustrate the problem.

assist rate is 29.4%, but the turnover rate is as high as 44.4%. Harden's every move has nowhere to hide under the defense of the Nuggets. Whether he is holding the ball or organizing his teammates, the Nuggets can see Harden's little thoughts, and everyone knows that the feeling of being seen through is very disgusting.

When Harden, who was in a large open position, everyone knew that he must be in a wrong state...

After all the zeroes in the second quarter, we can clearly feel that Harden's fighting spirit gradually disappears. Compared with the enthusiasm of "starting the attack mode early" in the first quarter, Harden, who always ends up at the bottom, may start to collapse in his mentality, at least he is unlucky.

You can see the negative and helplessness of Harden's physical movements. For example, when Zubac chose to give his defensive rebound to his teammates but was obtained by Braun. When the opponent launched a second attack, Harden spread his hands on the side; and after being blocked by Jordan Jr., his teammates were all back to defense, and Harden stood there and watched...

Harden played again for 12 minutes in the third quarter, but compared with the rewarding first quarter, he faced the bearded man who shouted "Harden's waste" at home fans of Denver, made 0 of 3 shots in his sports battle, with 1 assist and 2 mistakes.

However, it wouldn't be right if Harden was just dragging his feet in G5. The Bearded Man has made no contributions in the game. For example, the TNT commentator mentioned objectively and impartially, "Harden does not allow Jokic to catch the ball, he does a good job in defending Jokic."

Jokic made 4 of 13 shots in a sports game, with a shooting percentage of only 30.8%, which was his worst efficiency game in this round, and the Clippers often had Harden defending him. In the entire series, Harden was also one of the best players in defense of Jokic. They played against each other in a total of 51 rounds, but Jokic only made 4 of 9 shots and only scored 8 points on him..

Apart from that, under the Nuggets' harsh defense, Harden is still working hard to create opportunities. Many of them are "quasi-assisted balls" selected under the siege of multiple players. Some of these passes are fouled by the finisher, and some of them are not formed because they fail to hit, so they are not reflected in the data table.

Harden played poorly, but he was not useless. However, a big stage like the Battle of Tianwang Mountain and the past G5 diarrhea have magnified Harden's bad temper. After all, everyone on the Internet likes to beat the dogs in the water.

But one thing we must admit is that the Clippers need Harden to raise the G6 in the battle against the enemy. But all the signals told fans that it was not optimistic:

After losing to G4, both Clippers reporters said that they could not contact Harden for an interview after the game; after losing to G5, Harden also left the stadium early.

And the historical laws do not support Harden's counterattack in G6 - his 15 career performances in the playoffs, averaged 20.1 points, 7.2 assists, and a shooting percentage of 40.4%, with a record of 3 wins and 12 losses...