Harden decides to compete despite knee pain from fall
Guard James Harden chose to play Saturday’s game despite pain in his right knee from his crash into the basket stanchion on a foul by Spurs guard Brandon Paul during the fourth quarter of Friday’s win over the Spurs.
Assured he could not damage the knee, leaving the decision to his pain tolerance, Harden opted to play through the pain with extra padding on the knee.
Including this season, Harden has missed one game in the past four seasons with an injury.
“I don’t know you can make a decision (for him,) if the doctor says he’s structurally fine,” coach Mike D’Antoni said. “You say ‘How do you feel?’ If he says fine, do you say, I don’t believe you. He’s been around long enough. He knows his own body. He’ll be cautious. He’s not crazy. If he can play, he’ll play. If he can’t, he can’t.”
Harden is the only Rockets starter to have played in every game this season. Among rotation players, only Harden and P.J. Tucker have not missed games.
“One good thing about this team, we probably haven’t talked about it enough, James plays almost 82 games a year,” D’Antoni said. “He never misses a game. Trevor (Ariza) is always ready to play. That’s important for teams to have their guys game in game out because seasons are wrecked by people missing games. These guys are durable and it’s a good thing to have.”
Anderson starts as Capela sits
Center Clint Capela sat out Saturday’s game with a bruised right heel, sending the Rockets to their sixth starting lineup of the season with Ryan Anderson starting at center.
Nene was made available after the Rockets initially planned to have him sit out the second half of the back-to-back.
The Rockets started Anderson so he could match up with the Bucks’ John Henson, rather than have him at his usual power forward spot where he would have had to defend Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Capela had started each of the Rockets’ 27 games.
Forward’s injury has silver lining
The injury to forward Luc Mbah a Moute came at a challenging time, with the Rockets’ back-to-back completing a stretch of four games in six days and in a busy part of the schedule.
But coach Mike D’Antoni said he did plan to use the time without Mbah a Moute to take more of a look at his threeguard lineups with James Harden, Eric Gordon and Chris Paul on the floor together.
Some of that might be limited with Harden battling a sore right knee, but Mbah a Moute will be out long enough to have plenty of time with the Rockets’ top three scorers on the floor together.
“It’s something we wanted to look at anyway because there will be a lot of games we finish with those three guys on the floor,” D’Antoni said. “It’s something we have to take advantage of the next two weeks to take a look at. I always feel good with those three guys on the floor. You have Eric, James and Chris, it’s hard to go bad.”
On Friday, the first game since Mbah a Moute’s injury, Harden played the entire first quarter, rather than coming out of the game with one or two minutes left as he had been since Paul was removed from his minutes restriction.
But D’Antoni said he had hoped to go back to the previous rotation with Harden and Paul.
“I still want to get him out with about a minute to go in the first,” D’Antoni. said. “I have to figure that out a little bit. I have to do a better job there.”
Even before Saturday’s game, when Harden was dealing with a bruised knee, he had been averaging fewer minutes than in any season since becoming a starter with the trade to the Rockets for the 2012-13 season, ranking 13th in minutes played per game.
Jonathan Feigen