Rockets’ Harden on injury to eyes: ‘I could barely see’
OAKLAND, Calif. – Even an hour after the Rockets slipped to a Game 2 defeat that put them into a 0-2 deficit in the NBA Western Conference semifinals, James Harden was still struggling.
Walking behind Chris Paul into a postgame news conference, Harden held his hand over his left eye. Harden dealt with bleeding in both eyes, including a lacerated left eyelid, after an accidental poke from the Warriors’ Draymond Green on Tuesday.
As Harden sat down to address the media, he squinted uncomfortably, shielding his eyes from the bright lights of the podium, and explained how the first-quarter injury had affected him.
“I could barely see,” Harden said. “I just tried to go out there and do what I can to help my teammates. It is pretty blurry right now. Hopefully it gets better day by day.”
Harden had to leave the court after the contact with Green left him on the Oracle Arena floor clutching his face. When he came back in the second quarter he managed to put together a 29point performance as Houston battled hard before falling 115-109.
“He got raked pretty good in the eyes, but he came back,” Houston coach Mike D’Antoni said. “I didn’t have a doubt that he wasn’t coming back unless it was something catastrophic. That’s him. He would have loved to play better, but given the circumstances, he played great.”
Golden State led throughout, with the Rockets unable to close the gap to closer than three. Harden went 9 of 19 shooting, and despite being fouled on the 3-point attempt by Kevin Durant to finish the third quarter, the refereeing controversy of Game 1 did not raise its head again.
For the Rockets, Harden’s vision will be an issue they will want sorted out as the series shifts to Houston on Saturday. His regular-season exploits and extraordinary scoring levels made him a joint MVP favorite alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo. Given his limitations, his performance Tuesday was laudable.
“I couldn’t see nothing,” he added. “I barely could see. They put a couple of drops in to help it and numb it a little bit. All the lights were blurry.”
Harden’s mood was gloomy, although things took a lighter turn when a reporter informed him that sleeping would help his eye heal.
Green and Durant came to check on Harden as he left the floor in the first quarter, though it is not clear how welcome Green’s apology was.
“What do you want me to say?” Harden said. “He asked me if I was all right. I said, ‘Yeah.’ ”
“I made a mistake and hit him in his eye,” Green had said minutes earlier. “It’s not about hurting anybody out here. So many times, people forget that when a guy has an injury, you live with that every day, every second of every day. It is not just about the game.”
The Warriors had an injury scare of their own when Stephen Curry left the floor with a gruesome-looking finger injury early, but he returned quickly. After evaluation, it was learned that Curry’s middle finger on his left hand was dislocated, not broken, and despite favoring it a little, it did not seem to overly affect his performance.