Harden soars for 60
James Harden proves unstoppable against Atlanta, pouring in 60 points in a 158-111 rout.
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni caught James Harden on his way back from the shower to share a last laugh.
More than share a word or a chuckle, D’Antoni offered a pantomime, step-ping back and mimicking Harden’s left-handed delivery one more time, re-calling the 3s that were increasingly ridiculous — and unstoppable — through the night.
The Hawks had thrown everything they had at James Harden. They did not have much, with tired legs sapping the energy from an already shoddy defense. But what they might have lacked in quality, they had in variety.
The Rockets torched every scheme, every trap, every double team, then got out of the way for Harden to offer one more blast, scoring 29 of his 60 points in the third quarter to drive the Rockets to a 158-111 romp that was not even that close.
So, when asked about one of the 3-pointers that was particularly unfair, a 28-footer over Jabari Parker, D’Antoni considered all he had seen in four season and was still amazed into offering an impression.
“He’s so good, I don’t know how he does it,” D’Antoni said of the futility of defending Harden one-on-one. “I’ve never seen anybody have the strength where he can shoot over 6-10 guys and whap!
The Hawks had no intention of asking anyone to defend Harden without help. They came with double teams and traps. They went with a box-and-one, or something that looked like one. They Rockets torched them all, like body shots that left the Hawks weak and wobbly.
With that, the Hawks went back to the drawing board and trashed it, leaving a rotation of defenders on Harden island where at least they could suffer alone.
“I was just being aggressive,” Harden said. “A couple minutes into the game, they let me play one-on-one, then they started to trap. I just read what the defense was giving me and try to attack it as best as possible.”
Harden said he did not know what he was scoring in the third quarter, never considered going back in the game in the fourth quarter to score two more points to establish a new career high. D’Antoni was not tempted.
“You guys would kill me if I did that and he got hurt,” D’Antoni said, presum-ably not being literal. “I’d kill myself, first of all. Then, you’d shoot me.”
Harden had already become the third player in the past 25 seasons to score 60 points without playing in the fourth quarter, joining Klay Thompson and
Kobe Bryant. His fourth career 60-point game moved him into a tie with Jordan for the third-most career 60-point games, two shy of Bryant’s total and 28 from
Wilt Chamberlain’s collection.
No one had ever done it in as few shots, with Harden making 16 of 24 at-tempts and 8 of his 14
3s. He played 30 minutes.
His latest run into the record books, however, began with the Rockets tak-ing apart the Hawks defense with aggressive and
decisive passing and shot making after Harden gave up the ball.
Ben McLemore, starting with Danuel House Jr. joining Clint
Capela as out with an illness, had a season-high 24 points, making 6 of 11 3-pointers, adding a career-high 13 rebounds. Russell Westbrook needed to play just 27 minutes to score 15 points with eight rebounds and eight assists.
The Rockets shot so well, they had 25 3-pointers for the fifth time in the past two seasons. In league history, the rest of the NBA has reached 25 3s in a game once.
That was enough to force the Hawks to try something else, even if that meant inviting Harden to light them up.
“One of the timeouts I told the guys, ‘they got to take it (the double team) off pretty soon because everybody else was hitting shots all over the place,” D’Antoni said. “He just goes around them and scores anyway.
“We were getting everything we drew up. It wasn’t fair to them because they were tired. You can see when you don’t have legs, it’s tough.”
On Saturday, defending the Rockets was tougher than “tough,’ defending Harden impossible.
“What he does, he does it so consistently,” Austin Rivers said. “It’s like any-thing else, you get used to it. You do anything night after night people … grow unappreciative of it. The world or basketball fans are very unapprecia-tive of James’ scoring. What he’s doing has not been seen. My man had 60 and didn’t play in the fourth quarter.”
The Hawks showed their appreciation for what they were up against with what they tried to do to stop it, and with what happened when they tried something else.