For perhaps the second or third time in his career, Andre Roberson successfully made a team pay for leaving him open behind the three-point line. James Harden often doesn’t play defense, but in this video I’m pretty sure it was a strategic lack of defense on Roberson, not a lazy lack of defense like he usually displays. Why would you even bother closing out on Roberson’s three-pointers? His 24% mark from three is terrible even though 80% of his three-point attempts are “wide open” according to stats.nba.com. He’ll miss it more often if you guard him, sure, but when he shoots from out there he’s almost wasting a possession.
Anyway, Roberson basically had the game of his life on the offensive end, and would have had a career high had he scored any points in the fourth quarter, but Russell Westbrook played poorly and it was all for naught. If I was Roberson I’d talk to Westbrook after the game and be like “maybe you should give the ball to me more often instead of ruining the offensive flow with your bricks.” Making an effort to get Roberson more involved would be a sure way to lose, but it would be funny for Roberson to say something like that.