James Harden has amassed many accomplishments during his career, which will likely include a place in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
However, Harden still has a glaring omission on his resume \u2014 a championship ring.<\/p>\n
Harden sees his midseason trade to the Cleveland Cavaliers as his best opportunity yet for a postseason run culminating in an NBA title.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the truth. That\u2019s why I\u2019m here,\u201d Harden said about the narrative of doing everything but winning a championship.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers open the NBA playoffs on Saturday when they host the Toronto Raptors. Harden has 90 playoff wins, second among players who have not won a championship. Karl Malone is atop the list with 98, but Harden could surpass him if Cleveland reaches the Eastern Conference finals.<\/p>\n
Harden has played in 173 postseason games, third among players who haven\u2019t won a championship. Malone is at 193, and John Stockton is next with 182.<\/p>\n
The closest Harden has come to a championship was when Oklahoma City reached the NBA Finals in 2012, losing to the Miami Heat in five games. He reached the Western Conference finals with the Houston Rockets in 2015 and \u201918, only to be knocked out by the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n
\u201cRun up against a dynasty, injuries. It\u2019s a part of the game, though. \u2026 I don\u2019t dwell on it. I don\u2019t think back. It\u2019s a part of it. It\u2019s life,\u201d Harden said. \u2018I\u2019m sure we all could look at ourselves and think about certain things that happened over the course of our life that just didn\u2019t go our way and feel bad about it, feel sad about it. I don\u2019t think like that. I just keep pushing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harden\u2019s last two trips to the postseason were with the Los Angeles Clippers and ended with first-round exits.<\/p>\n
The Feb. 4 trade to Cleveland paired Harden with Donovan Mitchell, who also has experienced his share of postseason heartbreak. Mitchell is looking to reach a conference final for the first time in his nine-year career.<\/p>\n
Harden is averaging 20.5 points, 7.7 assists, and 4.8 rebounds in his 26 games with the Cavaliers, who are 19-7 when \u201cThe Beard\u201d is in the lineup. He is fourth in the league in assists (8.0), and his 23.6 points were 17th in the regular season. It was also his highest scoring average since 2020-21.<\/p>\n
Coach Kenny Atkinson described Harden as a teacher in describing his impact on the team in a short time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very bold, extroverted in talking with those guys, and it\u2019s a huge help. He knows the things I don\u2019t even see all the time,\u201d Atkinson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s like \u2018Hey, they\u2019re going to send Don left, can we flip the screen at this angle?\u2019 and \u2018Can we move the ball over to this side of the court so we\u2019ve got more space to take away their gaps?\u2019 I think he translates that message to the coaches and players,\u201d Atkinson said.<\/p>\n
The biggest question for Cleveland going into the playoffs is if its core four of Harden, Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen have had enough time together?<\/p>\n
With just seven games and 92 minutes together, the quartet has delivered impressive results \u2014 outscoring opponents by 26.7 points per 100 possessions \u2014 but it has been a short stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the talent is there, but the problem is, when you don\u2019t have a lot of chemistry going into high-stress situations like the playoffs, and against a team like Toronto who, I mean, let\u2019s face it, they\u2019ve got some guys that get after you — Scottie Barnes, Brandon Ingram — they understand the gravity of it all and they play hard, they play together,\u201d NBC Sports analyst Reggie Miller said.<\/p>\n
Harden isn\u2019t concerned about the lack of minutes with his teammates, noting that Mitchell, Mobley, and Allen have played together for four seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt probably took me a game or two just to figure out where they like the ball and what to do, what not to do, and so I\u2019m pretty familiar,\u201d Harden said. \u201cIn the postseason for the most part, they\u2019re going to guard you one way until game three, maybe game four, and make an adjustment. We\u2019ll figure out what works, figure out how they guard us, and then talk about how we can adjust and counter them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m not really worried about the (lack of) minutes. I\u2019m more focused on us and our operations and our force against their defense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Harden has amassed many accomplishments during his career, which will likely include a place in the Naismith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-610691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}