The 76ers' best player, Embiid, had a fractured eye socket and had no choice but to miss the first two games of the series against the Heat. He hopes that there will be a second boss in the team who can step up and help the team win the next one of the first two games, extending the series as long as possible so that he can return to the field in time with a special mask.
You may think I'm stating what's in front of me, but in fact, I'm just telling a story from 4 years ago. In the NBA world in recent years, time and space have been every team's most valuable resource, and the Philadelphia 76ers at that time had both. Despite losing Embiid, in the first game of that series, 21-year-old Ben Simmons relied on a quasi-triple-double with 17 points, nine rebounds and 14 assists to lead the team to a 130-103 victory over the Heat. The 76ers' Salute team shot 18 of 28 three-pointers at his instigation, and Saric, Redick and Belinelli all scored more than 20 points.
The Heat on the other side are in the throes of their rebuilding, and their lineup is full of highly paid veterans who look like time and space are in a mess. After Embiid returned, they lost three games in a row and were swept away by their opponents 4-1 gentleman. Pat Riley was devastated and sent away all the athletes on that team except for the team's meritorious haslem and rookie Adebayor.
After 4 years, everyone's fate has changed dramatically. Simmons became a professional Call of Duty player, Adebayor became the backbone of the Heat, and Riley's reconstruction looked to be very effective. The Heat advanced into the playoffs with a first-place record in the East and won back the space advantage in the series with the 76ers, taking a 2-0 lead.
In the first two games of Embiid's absence, Harden, who was replaced by Simmons for the 76ers, did not play the performance that people expected, and after two games, he averaged only 18 points per game in the third place on the team, shooting less than 40%, and only took 11 free throws. When reporters asked Harden at the press conference how the Heat kept you away from the free throw line, Harden closed his eyes, shook his head, and popped two words out of his thick beard: "Next question."
After the first two games, most of the 76ers' players struggled to do everything they could. Tobias Harris was steady at both ends of the court, with Teres Maxi scoring 53 points in two games, the 76ers missing eight times in the game yesterday, and limiting the Heat's frontcourt rebounding rate to 21.6 percent. If you don't ask for Philadelphia's No. 1 by Harden's standards, he's still a pretty good guard for most of the game, playing smart, rational, trying to make the team offensively efficient — he gave 15 assists in the sixth game of the last round, helping the team beat the Toronto Raptors, just not winning the more experienced and disciplined Miami Heat.
Of course, Harden also has his reasons: "I think we played okay, it's just those shots didn't score." You play against your opponents, you fight for every ball, you organize offense, you make it to the paint, you attract defenses, you try to create opportunities for yourself and your teammates, it's all about throwing the ball into the basket. If we pitch like this against a strong team on the road, the game will definitely not be won. ”
Harden was right, if Philadelphia's three-pointers hadn't been 8-of-30 but 16-of-30, the game would certainly have been completely different. But that's just another way of proving that the team's most important player is Embiid, not him: The 76ers have only done so once this season to shoot less than 30 percent from three-point range in consecutive games, two games against the Kings and Warriors in November, and coinciding with Embiid's absence.
At that time, the 76ers did not have Harden, and when the 76ers went to Miami without Embiid, they may also expect Harden to activate the team's shooter with surprise and passing like Simmons 4 years ago, or like the Harden we once knew, slashing 40 points in a team that was not top talented, and using the magic ball to raise the mediocre team to a higher level. Doug Rivers may have also poured chicken soup at Harden a few days ago: "James! Think of the people who laughed at you, ridiculed you, and looked down on you before, and now your stage is big, go to those Bichi to prove something! ”
Fate is like a cruel high school geometry teacher who always likes to let you prove things that have been proven countless times, but what is even more cruel is that every time it gives you a chance, you just happen to prove it. Maybe philadelphia without Embiid would have been a bit of a tough man to win the First Place in the East on the road, but the course of these two games points to a status quo that all Harden fans don't want to face: the Harden we know may not be back, and those unpredictable European steps, the invincible three-pointers, may have to say goodbye to us. We can't even call Harden's current performance by "slump," because that "slump" has gradually become his "habit" — he's scored less than 25 points in 12 consecutive playoff games.
The game at the beginning of the fourth quarter epitomized Harden's condition this season. At that time, Maxi had just cut 11 consecutive points to let the team chase the score to 84-92, and Harden faced Oladipo's defense, and the choices for four consecutive rounds were: passing the ball to Paul Reid, who was strictly guarded by Adebayo, Reid turned over and missed the basket; short shot in the retreat; short three-point shot in the retreat; breakthrough basket without touching the basket, Harden raised his hands and complained loudly, but the referee turned his head and ran to the backcourt, choosing to turn a blind eye. The Heat took the opportunity to pull the score away, and the suspense of the game ended.
We all remember how Harden played at his peak, four years ago, the day after Simmons led the team to win the Heat, the Houston Rockets played against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first game of the playoffs. Also facing a team led by Jimmy Butler, Harden shot 15-of-26 from the field and racked up 44 points and eight assists. Four years later, when Harden faces a wall in front of Butler's defense, you will sigh that the speed at which time passes on everyone is indeed different - of course, there is another example that can support this view, Harden's backcourt partner at the time, 37-year-old Chris Paul, who was two days away, just yesterday scored 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting in the final quarter, leading the team to the lone ranger.
There is such a huge difference between people, everyone is getting older, but some men have become handsome uncles, and others have become greasy middle-aged. We don't know why Harden's decline came so suddenly and so quickly, but harden's inability to get rid of defenders today is really no longer a secret in the league. According to ESPN statistics, in Harden's first game against the 76ers, 12 of his 13 shots were seriously disrupted. Everyone who's watched Harden play knows that all of his individual offense requires a certain amount of room to maneuver, but it's hard for him to shake off defenders now because he seems to have completely lost his explosiveness. We don't know if this is just a temporary problem caused by the hamstring injury that has plagued him this season, or a permanent injury caused by his declining fitness. This is very important because it will most likely determine which team he will sign with at the end of the season, and how big a contract he will sign.
The Athletic's veteran reporter Sam Amik broke the news yesterday that Harden is likely to no longer require a maximum salary contract in the free agent market, which may prove from the side that the Harden team is not optimistic about Harden's physical condition returning to the peak.
Harden looked very calm after yesterday's game: "Miami has done a great job defending me and given me a strong sense of pressure. I think I should play a little more aggressively in the next game. We did lose two away games, but as we all know, the series started with the first win away team. We'll go back home and do what we're supposed to do. When the fifth game of this series is played, we will be back. ”
Next, next, next year, next team, in recent years, we've often heard those words from Harden's mouth. We know that sometimes he's tough, but if he's half tough on the field, he won't get four points in the second half again in yesterday's game. But I fully understand this hard-nosedness: it's not easy to get a former superstar to accept mediocrity, let alone a superstar who has been proving his way throughout his career.
It's not easy for everyone who has succeeded to accept that there is nothing they can do about their decline, and I never thought harden was an unsuccessful athlete who failed to prove himself. He came to Houston from Oklahoma and proved that he could be the cornerstone of the team; in those years at Houston, he proved that he could be the best regular season player in the league, giving him a few shooters and blue collar workers, he could lead the team to 55 wins; in one or two later series, he proved that he could lead his team to play with the best teams in the league.
He's proven himself many times, only at the last crucial moment when he needs to prove himself to be one of the best athletes in the league, but he always misses success. It's hard to say whether this is due to strength or bad luck. It is precisely because of this that his fans are still sighing with his anger or strangling his wrists to this day, but as he declines, all this reluctance and resentment may also come to an abrupt end.
If all goes well, Embiid can pass the league's concussion test in time and hurry to get a conscience report on the orbital fracture, the source said, and he will have the opportunity to return from the third or fourth game of the series wearing a custom mask. Harden and the Philadelphia 76ers desperately need his comeback, and as long as Embiid returns, Harden still has a way to help the 76ers and opponents with his experience, skill and basketball IQ. Or we could illustrate this fact in another way: Harden, at the age of 32, has lost the ability to carry the team alone in a high-intensity series.
His career may still have a contract time, and before that contract ends, he has to reconcile with his own declining physical state, update his understanding of his competitive level, and be prepared, either bravely make changes, usher in the transformation, and complete the breakthrough in the role of second boss and trader; or he can only accept his destiny of mediocrity.