When needed most, Harden missing in action
When the Sixers absolutely, positively had to have a big night from James Harden, The Beard gave them 11 points.
Yes, the guy headed for the Hall of Fame, the serial scorer who once put up 60 points in a game barely hit double figures Thursday in a 99-90 loss to the Miami Heat that was a lot more lopsided than the final math.
Hey, Ben Simmons scored five points in Game 7 last year, and he’s never been accused of putting up a lot of shots.
“Listen, I’m not going to make this a referendum on James, OK?” Sixers coach Doc Rivers said. “We just could have played better. The ball could have moved more. Did we have enough time to get our (offense) in? I don’t know that. I thought we did, honestly. I really did. But clearly, we didn’t.”
Harden didn’t have much to say at his post-game availability.
“We didn’t score,” Harden said. “We didn’t score, and they got some easy buckets in transition, made some big shots and kind of blew the game open.”
The loss wasn’t all Harden’s fault, as Rivers said. Disaster struck early in the game when Joel Embiid, who needed 24 shots to get 20 points, rolled into Danny Green beneath the Sixers’ basket, pinning the left leg and knee of Green. Green was carried off the floor, his left leg dangling and in obvious pain just three minutes into the game
Green had made 13 of 18 (.722) 3-point field goals in his last four games, including his only attempt Thursday. That stretched the Heat defense and gave Embiid a
little more operating room.
Matisse Thybulle replaced Green with the contest tied at 9. With an opportunity to show he shouldn’t have been removed from the starting lineup, Thybulle scored just three points.
Almost immediately, the Heat double teams on Embiid turned to triple teams. Embiid had 14 points at the half but had to work for them, on just 5-of-14 from the field.
But back to Harden. The well-traveled veteran turns 33 in August, a couple of months after
he must decide whether to hang around for another season at a salary of $47.3 million.
Harden, not the Sixers, has the option whether to take it, although he could agree to tear the contract up and do something more cap friendly for Sixers GM Daryl Morey. And his answer? He wants to be back.
“I’ll be here,” Harden said. “I’ll be here. Whatever allows us to make the team better and do the things necessary to win, to compete at the highest level.”
There will be a lot of speculation about Rivers’
future. Under Rivers the Sixers are 154-100 (.649) in the regular season and 2314 (.621) in the postseason.
Rivers is signed through 2025 in a deal that averages $8 million annually.
“I don’t worry about my job,” Rivers said. “I think I do a terrific job and if you don’t, then you should write it because I worked my butt off to get this team here. When I first got here, no one picked us to be anywhere. And again, this year the same thing. If that’s how anyone feels, write it. I’m going to feel secure about it.”