{"id":508759,"date":"2026-02-28T02:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508759\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T02:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:08:07","slug":"james-harden-is-still-struggling-to-dribble-after-broken-thumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508759\/","title":{"rendered":"James Harden is still struggling to dribble after broken thumb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">However, that won\u2019t be happening on Friday as he\u2019s still struggling to dribble according to head coach Kenny Atkinson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI know this morning he was struggling a little just dribbling,\u201d Atkinson said when asked about Harden\u2019s thumb injury before Friday\u2019s game in Detroit. \u201cIf you have a hard time dribbling and catching [it\u2019s tough to play]. Jarrett Allen went through it earlier in the season. We tried to bring him back. He wanted to rush, and then we had to go back and give him some time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI know James is different\u2026we got to get the feedback from James. \u2026 Theres no tougher guy in the league. No one more available. No one wants to play more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The plan was to have Harden go through pregame warmups and see how it goes. However, he didn\u2019t come out for pregame warmups like usual.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Even though he won\u2019t be playing Friday, Atkinson says that he is making progress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cIt was improved from when he first did it,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like, man it feels the same. It\u2019s better than it was two days ago, so that\u2019s a positive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Harden has played seven games with the Cavs this season and is averaging 18.9 points and 8 assists on .494\/.488\/.867 shooting splits. On the season, he\u2019s averaged 24.5 points and 8.1 assists in 51 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, that won\u2019t be happening on Friday as he\u2019s still struggling to dribble according to head coach Kenny&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,249694,590,85],"class_list":["post-508759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cavs-injury-report","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}