What happened to James Harden? This time he failed to come up with the offensive pace he should have in the second half.
Harden had just 16 points, nine rebounds and five assists in the game, and only made 13 shots, less than Harris and Maxi. This is an abnormal distribution of shots. With Embiid unable to play with injury, shouldn't Harden come forward?
Harden also has Harden's difficulties.
We saw the 76ers in the center position with no one available and could only play Jordan Jr. Jordan Jr. got a plus-minus of -22 in the whole game, which proved that the effect was very limited and was a dragging leg. With this point of restraint, the 76ers as a whole will certainly be very constrained, and then Harden will definitely be implicated by this when he leads the team.
Rivers said he would continue to use Jordan Jr. because his teammates liked him. Whether the fans like Jordan Jr. or not, Rivers means the whole team will like him and will believe him. But Jordan Jr. has been in many teams, has been proven not to work, the defense is even more crotch, what role does this have?
Actually, Rivers was unavailable in this position. So can Little Jordan still work?
In my opinion, Jordan Jr. can be used, eating Harden's pie should be OK, but this takes time, these two people need a certain amount of time to run in, it is impossible to quickly play the effect, 76ers are also waiting for this opportunity. After all, Jordan Jr. is just Embiid's stand-in, as long as he survives two or three games, when Embiid returns, things will be solved.
Don't expect too much from Jordan Jr.
Therefore, to say that Jordan Jr. affected the attack and defense of an entire team, it is actually not so serious. Again, as we often say, Jordan Jr. is just one of the most obvious of the losing phenomena, and the 76ers losing phenomenon is essentially caused by other people's lack of efficiency.
Harden, as the current star of the house, can hardly blame it.
Harden himself admitted that he was not aggressive enough, but a sentence in the post-game interview let us see his undertone.
"We're going to get better, we're going to adapt to this set of series. Obviously, we are missing Embiid, which is something we can't control, but we have to get out of the woods, have the mentality of the next person to step up, and get better. I know we can because we are resilient. ”
That's what Harden said in his post-game interview, and when he said "the next guy to stand up," we knew the 76ers were probably going to be out this round.
Harden is still looking forward to the next person, not saying that he will take on this responsibility, he said he can find a way, but he did not say that he will find a way. Psychologically speaking, Harden is avoiding the heavy and light, and he is no longer able to bear the current problem of 76 people.
Rivers and Embiid have said many times before that the team needs Harden's aggressiveness, but the current Harden will only send more shells to Marx and Harris, and will not come up with consecutive 30+ or 40+ games.
It's actually understandable that Harden can only play this statistic when he is a Rocket, because the Rockets are a team built entirely on Harden, and when he leaves the Rockets, he needs to adapt to the team's game with other stars.
If Harden does not improve his offensive power, if he does not ignore the harshness of the environment and forcibly burn the fighting spirit, then the 76ers with Embiid's absence lineup, absolutely can not pass the Heat. The Heat's roster is very complete and has a good integrity, and Hiro's explosion this season and Tucker's defense against Harden have created a huge advantage over the 76ers.
In harden's current situation, he left the Nets wrong, but things have happened, Harden will have to face a more complicated situation with the 76ers, otherwise the situation is worrying.