On May 5, Beijing time, when Philadelphia continued to play in the absence of Embiid, they once again lost to the Heat away from home and fell behind 0-2 on aggregate. Harden contributed 20 points and nine assists in the game, and he has scored 16 points in the first half, but only 4 points were limited to 1 of 5 in the second half. It is worth mentioning that Harden has sleepwalked in the second half for two consecutive games, and he has only scored 4 points in the second half of two consecutive games, which has become one of the important reasons for Philadelphia's consecutive losses.
In the opening game of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Harden scored 16 points on 5-of-13 shooting, far from the performance expected of him. What is even more tragic is that Harden was limited to only 4 points in the second half of 4, especially the early abandonment of 0 points in the last quarter, which is also questionable.
Now Philadelphia continues to play away, Harden continued to slump in the first quarter, he only had 1 of 4 iron crosshairs, and even once appeared under the basket eye defense, watching the opponent's dunk round, also met with criticism from the outside world. Fortunately, Harden's offensive form picked up in the second quarter, and he scored 12 points on 4-of-6 in the second quarter, especially 0.1 seconds before the end of the first half, playing a foul to cause Oladipo to foul three points, allowing him to successfully walk on the free throw line and make all three free throws, and also chasing only 8 points in the first half.
However, a similar script was staged again, and Harden scored only 4 points in the second half of the dud 4 of 4. Unexpectedly, Harden's second half of this game was once again frozen by the Heat, and he was limited to only 2 shots in the third quarter to shoot a goal, and only scored 2 more points in a single quarter.
In the final quarter, Harden barely managed to raise his score to 20 points with the help of free throws, but the sports game was still frozen. Philadelphia was once pulled away by 18 points behind, even if they continued to stubbornly chase points afterwards, but they still lost the game, but they also suffered a 0-2 behind situation, in a very unfavorable embarrassing situation.
Of course, Harden still ushered in a number of playoff milestones in this game:
First, Harden ushered in the 145th game of the playoffs, surpassing Reggie Miller and Oakley in 144 playoff games, equaling the big dream Olajuwon, Nowitzki, Drexler and Korver all 145 games, rising to the NBA playoff history appearance list tied for 47th, the previous being the current Blazers coach Billups 146 games.
Second, Harden surpassed legendary glider Drexler with 891 assists in playoff assists to 20th in NBA playoff history, the former being former Warriors coach Mark Jackson's 905 assists.
Third, Harden's playoff shots surpassed former teammate Westbrook's 2321 shots, and also surpassed Lakers' 3-crown Hall of Famer James Worthy's 2329 shots, surpassing former Ringer Bill Russell's 2335 shots, and the NBA playoff history shot 26th, the previous one was Ewing's 2353 shots.
Fourth, Harden played iron 1331 times in the playoffs, surpassing Rings Bill Russell and glider Drexler 1332 times, rising to 22nd in history, the previous being Big Dream Olajuwon playing iron 1343 times.
(Text/Drunken Floating Life)