James Harden knows he can’t beat the Warriors on his own, and urged his Rockets teammates to step up after Golden State took a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference Finals.
Harden scored 41 points in Houston’ 119-106 series-opening loss.
Rockets’ James Harden: “I can’t do it by myself. We need everybody to be at their top play.” pic.twitter.com/fweymSXR1Z
— Ben Golliver (@BenGolliver) May 15, 2018
“We’re in this together,” Harden told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
“I can’t do it by myself, we need everyone to be at their top play. Whether it’s [Chris Paul], whether it’s Eric [Gordon], whether it’s [PJ Tucker], we need to just open up, talk about the game, talk about things that we see, that they see from their angle. We can get better on things that they saw that actually worked, and we’ll figure it out.”
Head coach Mike D’Antoni dismissed those who say his team played too much isolaton basketball in Game 1.
Per ESPN:
Houston’s offensive strategy, however, was criticized by members of TNT’s postgame show and others after Monday night’s 119-106 loss.
“It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, they iso! That’s all they do.’ No, it isn’t,” D’Antoni said before Tuesday’s practice. “That’s what we do best. We scored like 60 percent of the time on it. It’s like, no, really? Like, ‘Oh, they don’t pass. Everybody stands.’ Really? Have you watched us for 82 games?
“That’s what we do. We are who we are, and we’re pretty good at it. And we can’t get off who we are. Embrace it. Just be better at who we are and don’t worry about if somebody else solves the puzzle a different way.”
