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Lance Thomas: James Harden stopper

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Lance Thomas played great defense Saturday night against the Rockets. He's had a few games like that this year. Lance makes the occasional mistake, and on offense he moves as if navigating through shrubs, but the dude is versatile and vivacious as a stopper of all kinds. I have literally a dozen videos sitting on my desktop now of Lance singlehandedly snuffing out Rockets plays, but instead of replaying half the game, let's just focus on 5 very solid Lance moments in the path of James Harden. Harden is clever and elusive and deadly ... and Lance kinda locked him up more than he didn't:

I see great help, I see fighting over screens, I see fast-shuffling feet against a smaller and very slippery ball-handler, and I see decent contests even as Harden crosses over and fades away. These things are subjective and difficult to count, but I reckon Harden shot something like 2-6 when guarded by Thomas.

Keep it up, Lance.