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With the regular season about to end, the conversations about the MVP award have intensified even more.
The two favorites to win the Maurice Podoloff Trophy this year, James Harden and Russell Westbrook, have been compared, and their performances continue to be dissected. Another statistic was recently released by NBA.com, focusing on how they play defense. It showed that the Houston Rockets guard has contested over twice as many shots than Westbrook.
According to the league's official website, The Beard has a total of 642, while the Oklahoma City Thunder star only has 291 contested shots. It is from the combination of both two-point and three-point field goal attempts, over 79 games played this season.
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| PLAYER | TEAM | AGE | MIN | CONTESTED | CONTESTED | CONTESTED |
| 2PT SHOTS | 3PT SHOTS | SHOTS | ||||
| Russell Westbrook | OKC | 28 | 2783 | 166 | 125 | 291 |
| James Harden | HOU | 27 | 2890 | 355 | 287 | 642 |
The numbers may come as a surprise as Harden has often been ridiculed for how he plays defense. However, he also averages 1.5 steals per game and is slowly becoming a good on-ball defender as well, which has made many believe that it's the most underrated part of his game.
The Thunder on the other hand, have different defensive sets that they run, compared to the Rockets. They rely more on their big men to contest shots and challenge their opponents to take it to the rim, as they know they have a tall frontline. Houston has one of the highest scoring offenses in the league today, which makes other teams tend to play in a similar way and shoot more from the outside, where Harden usually is on the defensive end.
Although, the numbers above won't necessarily reflect who is the better defender among the two of them, it's still interesting to know as it adds another point of emphasis on this whole MVP debate.
