WEAR AND TEAR ON THE BEARD
Harden feels he’s well-equipped to handle heaviest of workloads
PHOENIX — The night’s work done, the streak extended to 27 games, his leagueleading average of points and minutes rising again, James Harden left the Rockets’ locker room just minutes after he entered it Monday.
Time for a workout. Scoring 14 points in the game’s final 7½ minutes — giving him 44 in the Rockets’ eight-point win over the Suns — was arduous enough. Few would go searching for a weight room before the night was over. But this too is part of Harden’s assault on NBA defenses twisting themselves in every shape imaginable to defend him and on the records the greats established before him.
Harden is far from alone in his postgame workout routine. He was not even alone in the weight room in Phoenix, with Kenneth Faried soon following him. But the Rockets maintain that Harden’s work ethic and discipline, from diet to training, will not only allow him to continue his historic scoring binge but to roll on without damaging the goals ahead.
“James every year has gotten better at understanding what he has to do,” coach Mike D’Antoni said. “His overall body fat is down. Stamina is better. He’s done a lot of extra work in the weight room. He wants to be fresh when the playoffs start.”
While much has been made
of the Rockets’ style, with so much of their offense in one player’s hands, as a possible deterrent to winning a championship, they believe it will be a non-issue once Chris Paul is up to speed and Eric Gordon is back in the lineup. The other question is whether carrying the Rockets for so long could be draining Harden’s tank.
Harden acknowledged he does not feel the same as always, as he did in the season he led the NBA in assists or last season, when he led in scoring.
“You can see it,” Harden said. “I feel better.”
The Rockets have been shorthanded for most of his scoring streak. While Harden has scored at least 30 points in 27 consecutive games, moving within four games of Wilt Chamberlain’s second-longest streak, Paul missed 18 of those games, Clint Capela 11 and Gordon nine.
Yet Harden did not seem to even see the logic in assuming his run could take a toll.
“Nah. Nah. Why, because I'm scoring the ball more?” Harden said. “I love the game of basketball. I don’t worry about getting drained or getting tired. I am going to play basketball. I don’t worry about everything else. I hoop.”
The Rockets have sought to limit the workload by cutting back on practice time and nearly eliminating shootarounds. Harden’s playing time has increased from 36 minutes per game to 38.8 during the streak. D’Antoni said he monitors not just the total minutes but how Harden looks, the demands on him, and even the way the game is going to determine how long to keep him on the floor.
“The only thing I worry about is (if ) during the game he goes too long, too many minutes, and is doing too much stuff,” D’Antoni said. “It’s also how the game goes. Sometimes there’s a lot of timeouts, a lot of foul shots, interruptions. I’m looking out there, and he can go an extra two minutes because he hasn’t gone up and down. It’s a lot in the moment.
“I was going to take him out at the end of the first quarter (at Utah on Saturday). I looked at him, and there was a lot of free throws and stoppages and reviews. He looked at me like, ‘Not now.’ ”
The Rockets have extended Harden’s minutes because they have needed him on the floor to win. They are 19-8 during his streak, but they visit Sacramento on Wednesday with just a threegame lead on the ninth-place Kings.
The argument can be made that having to carry a team while facing every defensive game plan imaginable could prepare Harden for the postseason. His shooting percentages have declined in the playoffs, but he has averaged 27.6 points, seven assists and 5.5 rebounds in the postseason with the Rockets.
Though the assumption has been that he fatigued, a notion the Rockets shared after the 2017 playoffs, D’Antoni said he was unconcerned about what Harden will bring to the postseason.
“When something goes bad, they’re, ‘I told you,’ ” D’Antoni said. “Usually, one guy prevails in the playoffs, one team. Everybody else was ‘too tired.’
“Everybody gets tired. And James will get tired in the playoffs. We split hairs so much. Like, when somebody misses shots, ‘They’re tired.’ No. They’re human. They miss shots. They have bad games. It’s a competition. The other team is really good. So there’s a lot of factors. But I know he’s a special one. He’ll be ready.” Until then, Harden has a plan. “I’m just trying to continue to keep going like nothing can slow me down, nothing can stop me, and trying to give that same courage, same motivation to my teammates,” he said. “But it is not just about scoring. It is about going out there and attacking the game and being aggressive with the game defensively, offensively. That is all I can give them.”