Harden writes his own redemption screenplay
He is ultimately responsible for the Sixers having life in these playoffs against the Boston Celtics.
No one looks anymore if Harden is overweight, if he goes out at night or if he posts something inappropriate on social media. Harden is talking less and less off the court and much more on it. While P.J. Tucker screams in Embiid’s face to react in the clutch, to prove he’s the best player in the NBA, it’s The Beard who takes responsibility for taking care of the ball when it weighs like a sand balloon.
Simply put: what Embiid suffers, Harden enjoys. The regular series is not the playoffs and we are devouring spoonfuls every game.
Let’s be clear so as not to confuse: the Celtics are a better team than the Sixers. By depth, by quality, by energy. Harden, however, is doing everything he can to keep this maxim from materializing in the final score. For the Sixers to live up to it, they need extraordinary production like The Beard is showing. Without him, this series would have already ended in a sweep.
On Sunday afternoon, Harden had his second 40-point game in the series, rebounding from an ill-advised Game 3 in which he was misaligned facing the rim. We’re told by GIS that Harden joined Allen Iverson (six in 2001 and two in 2003) as the only Sixers with multiple games of 40 points or more in a single postseason.
The stat sheet is earth-shattering, but if you check Sunday’s stat sheet, you’ll see that Embiid had 34 points, 13 rebounds and three assists. The stat sheet is pretty decent, if not excellent, but not at all reflective of what happened in the outcome.
“I think we players have to step up…… I have to do my job. Everybody knows what their role is and they have to do theirs,” said the Cameroonian after Game 3, in which Boston was on an unmitigated winning plane.
It seemed like a missile aimed at Harden that statement, but the reality is that it could also have been self-criticism and perhaps some guilt. The truth is what we could see: Embiid’s numbers were good, but while Harden was single-handedly accelerating late in the game, with hot blood in his veins, Embiid was a lumbering car that his teammates had to push to make it work.
Perhaps that’s why you still can’t understand Jaylen Brown’s defense at the close of the second overtime that ended with Harden’s decisive shot. With the Celtics up two points, why close out and double Embiid leaving Harden alone for the decisive three-point shot? Just by watching a little bit of this series we already knew who was going to take the last shot. A sin that must still be swirling around in Joe Mazzulla’s head.
Especially if we look at what happened in the two games they lost to Harden. In the first one he made 45 points with a game-winning shot with eight seconds left. In the second he made 42 with 19 seconds to play.
Redemption, then, is evident: entering this series, Harden was 1-10 in shots to go on to win in the final 30 seconds of a playoff game. He’s now 2-2 against Boston.
“I just want to win and it doesn’t matter which way. I want to win,” Harden said. “And to be honest, today it was kill or be killed for us. We found a way to get the win and that’s all that matters in the postseason.”
The two games the Celtics won, they won in cruise mode. The ones the Sixers won, they won on prayers at the end.
Boston is a better team than Philadelphia, but Harden, the handbrake in this series, the rising knight of redemption, tells us once again that things aren’t over until they’re over.
Joel Embiid is the regular series MVP for the Sixers. James Harden, the playoffs.
The management, the fans, the coaches and we already know it.
His teammates, too.
