On March 28, Beijing time, the NBA regular season was in full swing, and the Philadelphia 76ers challenged the Phoenix Suns away. After four fierce quarters of fighting, the 76ers finally lost to their opponents 104-114, losing the highly watched top battle.
In this campaign, there are a total of four All-Star players on the court, namely Paul, Booker, Harden and Embiid. Throughout the game, Paul had a double-double of 19 points and 14 assists on 9-of-15 shooting, Booker had 35 points and two assists on 13-of-22 shooting, and Embiid contributed 37 points, 15 rebounds and three assists on 14-of-27 shooting.
In contrast, Harden's performance is significantly worse. Throughout the game, he played 39 minutes, 11 shots only 2 hits to get 14 points and 9 assists, data show that when he was on the court, the 76ers net loss opponents as many as 16 points, except for 8 of 8 free throws in the game, there was almost no highlight. It should be noted that in a head-on conversation with former teammate Paul, he was completely blown up by his opponent.
It's important to note that this is just a microcosm of Harden's recent sluggish performance. In the past nine games, the 10-time All-Star guard has averaged only 20.6 points and 9 assists per game, and has made as many as 3.5 turnovers, shooting only 35.6% overall and shooting as low as 29.4%; compared with the first five games of the team he just entered, he averaged 24.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 12.4 assists per game, shooting 53% from the field and shooting 45% from three-point range.
Once upon a time, when Harden first joined the team, Embiid was ecstatic, he praised Harden more than once in an interview with the media, but also did not forget to step on the former teammate Simmons; but it was not long before Harden was beaten back to the original form, especially in shooting, there is a clear "Simmonsization" trend. Now, Embiid was still too happy!