For better or for worse, Harden used to take what he wanted. “I’ll take what the game gives me,” Harden said after Game 3, when he attempted just 11 shots from the field in a Sixers win. For the most part, he spends his possessions running the show for the Sixers, mortgaging the audacity of his game for the sake of making the right play. There are times when Harden still looks every bit the player who snapped entire defensive schemes-but only times. The right defender, the right alignment, the right lineup. Harden was once the most self-sustaining scorer of his generation, an offense unto himself. It’s not one that shadowed Harden, either, until somewhat recently-until his first step couldn’t launch him past defenders with the same force it used to, and his toughest jumpers stopped falling with the same back-breaking regularity. That’s not a word that’s often used to characterize the play of Embiid, Giannis Antetokounmpo, or Steph Curry. If Joel Embiid is on the floor with him, he can bring all the elements together to break a game open. If the floor is spaced perfectly, he can turn those lanes into some kind of offense. If Harden’s stepback 3 is falling, he can still find lanes to attack. The only thing separating the Harden who dragged the Sixers over the finish line in Game 4 and the Harden who has otherwise averaged 16.8 points on 38.4 percent shooting in the other games of this series was the cooperation of his most difficult attempts. Yet when asked about his standout showing, the only real difference Harden saw was in the result. It was the first time Harden scored over 30 points in a postseason game since the first round of the 2021 playoffs. ![]() Amid public debate over Harden’s substandard production in these playoffs and what that might mean for the state of his game, he responded with the exact kind of inarguable, unstoppable scoring the Sixers needed. ![]() Philadelphia’s lightning-rod lead guard came up with almost every critical shot down the stretch of Sunday’s Game 4, evening up the Sixers’ second-round series against the Heat with an impressive array of drives and stepbacks-the exact menu that made Harden an All-NBA fixture and an MVP. On one of the most triumphant nights of his career, James Harden told a damning truth.
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