The Detroit Pistons held firm on Friday to force a Game 7 against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night. Former Houston Rockets superstar and current Cavs co-star James Harden has earned a reputation for big game meltdowns. Is Harden’s Game 7 reputation deserved? Or will he finally rip off his label as a playoff choker?
Exploring the James Harden-Game 7 Experience Up To Now
Rockets fans still love Harden. That’s despite the 2018 NBA MVP not ending his 2012-2020 Houston tenure under the best of circumstances. He came into the 2020-21 season overweight and complaining that he hadn’t already been traded. It wound up being the first of many acrimonious exits. Stints with the Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers, and Los Angeles Clippers all ended similarly.
But Harden wasn’t just a gun for hire for Houston, as he became with those teams, and now with Cleveland. For the Rockets, he was the franchise. And so it was tough for Rockets fans to continually defend his ugly playoff record.
Harden scored 12 points and was benched in a comeback Game 7 win over the Los Angeles Clippers in 2015. He shot 2-for-11 (with six turnovers) in a season-ending Game 6 versus the San Antonio Spurs in 2017. He went 4-of-15 to barely hold on against a developing Oklahoma City Thunder squad in 2020. It’s a playoff record that hasn’t gotten any prettier in the time since either.
The Playoff Record
Sunday night will be Harden’s 187th playoff game. He’s already played 58 since leaving Houston. In that time, he has averaged 20.0 points and 8.0 assists (to 3.7 turnover) per game on 42.5% shooting from the field (36.8% from 3). Hardly superstar numbers. Perhaps most surprisingly, he’s actually been a very slight net negative on the court, at -8 overall.
But the Harden playoff experience isn’t really best encapsulated with the averages. Rather, it’s the extremes. In particular, in the games that matter most.
The 36-year-old has played in eight elimination games since leaving Houston. He’s won two of them.
His most recent Game 7, against the Toronto Raptors two weeks ago, went fairly well. In that outing, Harden attempted what was then his most free-throws in a playoff game (13) since he was in Brooklyn. However, the Raptors were never expected to push the Cavs to seven games. Harden’s other elimination game win came against the Denver Nuggets in Game 6 last season. There, he actually shot 10-of-20 from the field to finish with 28 points and 8 assists. Unfortunately, he followed it up by going 2-for-8 from the field for seven points in a Game 7 loss.
Of course, Harden hasn’t been the first option for any of his teams since Houston. He’s been a second star beside Rockets forward Kevin Durant (with the Nets), 76ers center Joel Embiid, Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard, and now Cavs guard Donovan Mitchell. But his playoff performances keep on turning into talking points anyway.
Why Do His Game 7s Go That Way?
The fact is that Harden has always been more of a regular season player than a postseason one. Even die-hard Harden fans wouldn’t die on the hill of saying otherwise. The characterization as a ‘choker’ is what has never seemed fair.
Harden games the system. He thrives on the margins that other players normally don’t care about. When the playoffs come around, those margins are more intensively explored. Essentially, his schtick gets figured out. Harden doesn’t have an unstoppable pull-up middy. He doesn’t have sinew-snapping acceleration to blow by anyone at any time. He can’t simply run and dunk like a certain potential offseason target for Houston.
His signature shot is the stepback 3. Probably the most difficult shot in basketball. He’s very good at them and, even so, he’s made just 36.4% of his 9,323 regular season 3-point attempts and 34.1% of his 1,368 postseason attempts. It isn’t a bad shot. It’s worth three points if it goes in, the threat of him taking it makes his drives easier, and he can go to it almost whenever he wants. But it is, by its very nature, an unreliable shot, even if you practice it as much as Harden does.
The Most Relatable Superstar
Harden’s game isn’t built on any outlier attributes. Instead, it’s built on meticulous repetition in pursuit of excellence. Even his vaunted playmaking has a faintly procedural quality to it. It’s like a piece of software that’s been pre-programmed with ten thousand individual passes all tailored to specific on-court triggers. But the software doesn’t account for playoff intensity, defenders being that little bit quicker, that little bit more prepared. Against that intensity, the passes wind up looking sloppy and telegraphed.
What worked in the regular season no longer works in the playoffs, and he can’t adjust. He can’t go to another level because he ekes every last ounce of potential out of his game day in, day out.
Harden’s successes should be celebrated from that lens, his shortcomings acknowledged, but not derided. Harden arguably did more to change NBA basketball than any of his superstar contemporaries. Kids don’t grow up being able to shoot like Durant or Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry. Even the best young athletes will never have the body of prime LeBron James, even if they share his name and DNA.
But work tirelessly on perfecting their craft? Learn exactly when to pick up their dribble to execute the most egregious but legal gather steps, and then practice it fifty thousand times? That’s the kind of thing someone can at least aspire towards. Fittingly, he’s playing this series against the Pistons’ Cade Cunningham, a next-generation superstar with a remarkably similar game.
Not For Everyone
Understandably, some people just hate Harden’s game aesthetically. It appears robotic, repetitive, and rehearsed. Or to them, his min-maxing is in some way dishonorable, a disservice to the sport. Or, they simply balk at the praise Harden receives for almost exclusively regular-season achievements. Those perspectives are entirely legitimate.
But anybody who still considers themselves a fan of Harden should hold their head high. They should do so even in the event of another Harden-Game 7 disaster class on Sunday night. In the meantime, though, they can hope that the beard puts those classes on hold. One good Harden-Game 7 wouldn’t change a career of apparent big game yips. But die-hard Harden fans would like, just once, to see the Beard go full Yippee Ki-Yay on his haters.
© Ken Blaze-Imagn Images
