James Harden Is More Than Holding His Own in Heavyweight Duel with Steph Curry

James Harden of the Houston Rockets and Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors are locked in a battle worth watching in the Western Conference Finals. It justifies every bit the pair finishing in the top two in MVP voting.

Some looked at this as a chance for Curry to validate his award. Others looked at it as a chance for Harden to demonstrate that the voters were wrong. 

To make their case, many have pointed to the last play of Game 2, in which Curry forced a Harden turnover as the final seconds ticked off the clock with the Warriors holding a one-point lead. The turnover prevented a potential game-winning shot. It also became fodder for conversation, which is a distraction from beautiful basketball. 

If what you’re getting from this series is that it proves either is the more valuable player, you’re just not watching right. Both have been spectacular.

Traditional Stats

First, just look at the basic box score numbers.

While Curry’s numbers have been amazing, Harden’s have been surreal. He’s averaging close to a triple-double. A look at the play index at Basketball-Reference.com reveals that no player since at least 1985 has posted such numbers to start a series, and only Baron Davis has hit them in consecutive playoff games.

Scoring Efficiency 

While Harden has the edge in production, Curry’s efficiency has been insane.

For those not familiar with them, effective field-goal percentage (eFG) is field-goal percentage adjusted for three-point makes; true shooting percentage (TS%) accounts for threes and free throws.

Possession efficiency is my own creation. The details are here. (Though it’s expressed in points per play there, rather than as a percentage.)

It accounts for ball-handling turnovers, shooting fouls drawn and misses rebounded by the player’s team. The number represents an adjusted percentage of possessions used by the player in which he scores. It also relies on actual numbers, not just estimates. So it’s more precise than things like true shooting percentage, which uses estimates to determine values for free throws.

In other words, Curry is scoring on the equivalent of 85.9 percent of the possessions he uses, and Harden is scoring on 71.7 percent of his own. That also means that on possessions used by Curry, Golden State's offensive rating is 171.8; on Harden's, Houston’s is 143.4.

Combined, the two players have burned 85 possessions and scored 133 points. That’s sillidiculous. It’s so impressive, I literally have to make up a word to describe it.

Curry has been more efficient, but with one caveat. The most frequent defender on him has been Jason Terry. Harden has been guarded mainly by Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. I think we can all agree that Thompson and Green are better stoppers than Terry.

Advanced Stats

For the above chart, floor impact counter (FIC) was created by Chris Reina, chief editor of RealGM.com. Player efficiency rating (PER) is John Hollinger’s invention. Win shares is the innovation of Bill James. All those numbers were obtained at RealGM.com.

Player Impact Estimate comes from NBA.com/STATS.

Net differential is the per-game difference in score with the player on the court minus the difference when he’s on the bench. I determined that from box scores.

From an advanced stat point of view, Harden has been slightly more brilliant than Curry. But all these number are massive.

Team Impact

Finally, here is a look at what each player generates for his team, either through scoring or passing, and what percentage of the offense each accounted for. 

I looked at the passing dashboards for both Harden and Curry to determine how many points came off their assisted field goals. I also looked at the player-tracking box scores to determine free-throw assists and secondary assists (crediting two points for each).

If someone wants to adhere to the deeply fallacious “reasoning” that winning is “all that matters,” then Curry played better than Harden. Utilizing that logic, Brian Scalabrine had a better 2008 Finals than Kobe Bryant.  

And as Adam Fromal of Bleacher Report notes, Curry has been getting far more help than Harden:

So maybe there’s room around the notion that Curry’s team winning doesn’t equate with Curry winning.

If one is able to accept the possibility that someone can play well—or even the best of anyone on the court—and still be on the losing team, Harden makes a great argument. In fact, his average game score (Hollinger's single-game version of PER) through the first two games is the best since at least 1985.

RK	PLAYER	SEASON	PTS/G	TRB/G	AST/B	GMSC
1	James Harden	2014-15	33.0	10.5	9.0	32.3
2	LeBron James	2008-09	38.5	8.3	8.0	29.3
3	Kobe Bryant	2009-10	33.7	7.2	8.3	28.8
4	Hakeem Olajuwon	1985-86	31.0	11.2	2.0	28.3
5	Hakeem Olajuwon	1994-95	35.3	12.5	5.0	28.2
6	Amar'e Stoudemire	2004-05	37.0	9.8	1.4	27.3
7	Tim Duncan	2002-03	28.0	16.7	5.8	27.2
8	Kobe Bryant	2008-09	34.0	5.8	5.8	26.8
9	Michael Jordan	1990-91	29.8	5.3	7.0	26.3
10	Magic Johnson	1985-86	22.2	8.0	16.2	26.2
11	Kevin Durant	2011-12	29.5	7.5	5.3	25.7
12	Stephen Curry	2014-15	33.5	4.5	5.5	25.5

Not only is Harden having arguably the best Conference Finals since at least 1984-85, Curry’s is “only” the 12th-best.

And here are the top scoring conference finals since 1964-66.

RANK	PLAYER	YEAR	PTS/G
1	LeBron James	2008-09	38.5
2	Amar'e Stoudemire	2004-05	37.0
3	Hakeem Olajuwon	1994-95	35.3
4	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	1973-74	34.8
5	Kobe Bryant	2008-09	34.0
6	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	1971-72	33.7
7	Kobe Bryant	2009-10	33.7
8	LeBron James	2011-12	33.6
9	Stephen Curry	2014-15	33.5
10	Kobe Bryant	2000-01	33.3
11	James Harden	2014-15	33.0

In both of the cases above, there is only one instance in the conference finals that featured a head-to-head. Ergo, statistically, this is arguably the best-featured matchup in the history of the round.

And, as Elias Sports Bureau noted after Game 2, via ESPN.com:

"

James Harden scored 38 points on 13-for-21 shooting, grabbed 10 rebounds and handed out nine assists in the Rockets' Game 2 loss at Golden State. Only two other players in NBA history racked up at least 35 points, eight rebounds and eight assists while shooting better than 60 percent from the field in a non-overtime playoff loss: Lew Alcindor (the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) for the Bucks against the Knicks in 1970 and the 76ers' Charles Barkley against Milwaukee in 1986.

"

So Harden’s Game 2 performance was one of the best ever in a postseason loss.

Elias also noted of Curry:

"

Stephen Curry made five of his 11 shots from three-point range in the Warriors' Game 2 win over the Rockets. It was Curry's lowest total of three-pointers in any of his last four playoff games, having made six and eight, respectively, in the final two games against Memphis and six more in Game 1 against Houston. He's the first player in NBA history to make at least five shots from downtown in each of four consecutive playoff games.

"

Both players are having historically great conference finals, and that they are doing it against each other just makes this pure joy to watch. Watching them trade shots and swap runs has been pure basketball ecstasy. And sometimes, maybe things don’t need to be debated. They just need to be enjoyed.

Who is winning this series? The fans are.

Stats for this article not obtained from Basketball-Reference.com, RealGM.com and NBA.com were calculated by the author using game logs and standard box scores.