On the morning of April 24, Beijing time, the NBA playoffs continued, and the Los Angeles Clippers ushered in G2 against the Dallas Mavericks. In this game, the Clippers welcomed Leonard's comeback.
After the opening, Harden sent a wonderful pass and assisted George to smash the dunk with one arm when he cut to the basket. The Clippers' second score, also from the connection between Harden and George, George hit a solid shot.
After providing two assists for George, Harden received a pass from Plumlee to grab a rebound in the backcourt and drove to the basket head-on, causing Washington to foul and make one of two free throws.
After a back-to-back inability to score, Harden assisted Mann on a three-pointer. However, the shooting percentage of the Clippers team was so poor that Harden had to rely on free throws to score another 2 points.
The first 10 points of the Clippers are all related to Harden, the Clippers spent nearly 8 minutes for these 10 points, and in the second half of the first quarter, a full 5 minutes and 20 seconds, the Clippers did not score in the sports battle, and the Clippers fell behind 19-23.
Harden dished out three assists in the first quarter, and he also completed a milestone, surpassing Jordan in terms of total assists in the playoffs, and ranking 12th in NBA history!
Halfway through the second quarter, Harden faced Irving's defense and made a pull-up jumper from the free throw line to score his first point in the game. In the next round, Deng Ge forced his way to the inside line with Owen and scored two more points.
With 5:07 left in the quarter, Deng Ge received the iconic step-back jumper under the crotch in a row, Exum pounced on the foul, and Deng Ge fell to the ground and scored a three-point success.
With this free throw, Harden ushered in his second personal milestone of the game, and the number of free throws made in the playoffs reached 1,069, surpassing the Magic (1,068 goals) and ranking 10th in NBA history.
Deng's desire to attack became stronger and stronger, and after receiving Powell's long pass, Deng's rare two-handed dunk scored, igniting the whole court. At halftime, Harden scored a team-high 12 points, along with three rebounds and four assists.
At the start of the third quarter, Harden made two consecutive outside shots, and finally hit a three-pointer on his seventh shot. The camera gave a close-up of Harden, Brother Deng wrinkled his nose tightly, revealing a ruthless expression, Brother Deng, who did not paddle, had full marks in combat effectiveness.
With nine seconds left in the quarter, Deng Ge came up with his signature long-range foul tactic and hit all three free throws to give the Clippers a 66-65 lead at the end of the third quarter.
The physical confrontation between the two teams in the first three quarters was a tie-break, and Harden scored the second-highest score in the game after Doncic.
Halfway through the final quarter, the Clippers scored just seven points, and the Mavericks went on a 12-0 run to lead by six points. With 1:20 left in the final quarter, the Clippers trailed by nine points, and Harden scored an open three-point to keep the Clippers alive.
But there wasn't enough time left for the Clippers, although Harden assisted Leonard to score in the final 20.5 seconds to narrow the deficit to three points. In the end, the Clippers still lost 93-96 to the Mavericks at home, and the big score of the two teams came to 1-1. Harden was 6-of-14 shooting, 2-of-10 three-pointers and 8-of-9 free throws, including just two open shots in the final quarter, finishing with a team-high 22 points, six rebounds and eight assists.