Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder had heavy praise for reigning MVP James Harden ahead of Game 2. Snyder had compared Harden to artificial intelligence on Tuesday and was asked to expand on that before Wednesday night’s game.
I think the way he plays, there’s an artistic nature to it. The feel that he has for different things on the court. He’s able to put the ball on different locations that he wants, to manipulate spacing. He can anticipate help and rotations and find people. His mind is, obviously he’s skilled, but I think the way that he processes the game at that level. He literally sees the whole court. If someone’s not looking at him, he’ll find the guy that isn’t being guarded. That makes it hard, when whatever it is that you’re doing, he’s got real-time counters. It’s a challenge in that sense. It’s a challenge for our guys (to defend Harden). We’re glad to have the opportunity and see what we can make of it. He functions at a high level.
The Jazz had mimicked a unique style of defending Harden very similar to the way the Milwaukee Bucks had success against Harden earlier in the season. The Jazz were completely shading Harden right to take away his stepback jumper and left hand. The idea was to funnel him to Rudy Gobert and lower his efficiency. Harden still managed to end the game with 29 points, 10 assists, and 8 rebounds.
Guard Ricky Rubio insinuated after Game 1 that the Jazz would likely stick to this unique strategy. It’ll be interesting to see if Utah finds any success at slowing down the seven-time All-Star.
