Houston Rockets: James Harden’s progress on the defensive end

Despite being regarded as one of the game’s most unstoppable forces on offense, Houston Rockets star James Harden has recently shown signs of evolving at the other end of the floor this season.

Once upon a time, Houston Rockets guard James Harden would often find himself cast into the role of lead scapegoat for his lack of effort on defense. Analysts and fans who had come to regard him as one of the league’s best players habitually composed a mass of videos to lament his woeful performances time and time again.

Now, Harden appears to have taken the public’s general thoughts into deep consideration, as the reigning NBA MVP — who was once labeled as a poor defender — has worked immensely to shun his crop of critics by putting together the best individual defensive season of his career.

The 29-year-old guard, who once ranked 18th among point guards with a Defensive Plus-Minus of +0.03 earlier this year, is currently averaging a career-high in steals and blocks per game in his seventh season with Houston.

"“They’re trying to find something that he’s not Superman at,” Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni told Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. “I think his defense has been underrated for a while. Every now and then, guess what, he’ll take a play off. They’ll zoom in and go ‘Look.'”“You could do that with every player in the NBA if you wanted to. It’s just the narrative you want to make. If you want to make that narrative, you can nit-pick him.”"

Although it is likely most basketball aficionados will remember The Beard for his annual offensive exploits compared to his defense, those who previously scoffed at Harden’s paucity to focus on the less glamorous side of the floor should be happy to know that the league’s leading scorer has shown the ability to play solid defense and generate big-time stops in one-on-one instances with the game on the line.

Harden — who currently sits in the 74th percentile in isolation defense this season — has forced either a turnover or steal in 12.8 percent of possessions when relegated on an island by himself. In addition to successfully holding his own as a defender on the low block, the former Arizona State star has managed to hold opponents to just 36.8 percent shooting from the field in both isolation and post-up instances.

"“He can play defense when he wants to,” Rockets forward P.J. Tucker told Salman Ali of Rockets Wire following a key defensive stop from Harden in the waning seconds of Houston’s 121-119 win against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 25.“Everybody always talks [bad] on James about him playing defense, but he wants to win.”"

However, Harden has not just played defense whenever he seeks to. He has done so on evenings where many star players of his caliber often times have little to nothing left to give. The man who currently boasts the second-highest usage rate in league history stuffed the stat sheet en route to producing one of the best two-way performances of the season last month.

In the second game of a back-to-back set on the road, Harden nearly produced the highest scoring five-by-five game ever recorded in the NBA history, tallying a game-high 43 points,12 rebounds, six steals, five assists and four blocks in Clutch City’s 125-98 win against the Utah Jazz.

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"“I can’t even do that in a video game,” Rockets forward Gerald Green told reporters following the outing. “It’s crazy. It’s unbelievable, the stuff he’s really doing…He puts the work in.”"

Yet despite his recent success, Harden claims to not be worried about any past or present criticism of his play on defense. The man who leads the league in deflections per game and ranks second in total steals and blocks among players 6’7″ and under this season believes that you are free to think whatever you want.

"“That’s not my job to wonder why I don’t get enough credit for this or that,” Harden said, per Feigen. “My job is to go out and hoop, be the gamer that I am, like I love to hoop, I love to play basketball. I don’t sit back and try to figure out why I don’t get credit for this or that.”“If I did that, I’d go crazy.”"

Harden and the Rockets will seek to capture their eighth win in their last 11 outings, as they get ready to take on Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets at the Toyota Center on Thursday.