It seems that this kind of performance should be expected from James Harden this season. Once again, the Houston Rockets guard exploded in an impressive individual game as the team battled against the defending champions.
Harden kept his team in the game, scoring 41 points, dishing out 15 assists, and grabbing 7 rebounds. Harden’s scoring came with hyper-efficiency, as he shot 13 of 20 from the field, including 5 of 9 from three.
Unfortunately for Harden, the impressive performance was not enough to pull out the victory, as the Cavaliers used a similarly efficient night from Kyrie Irving to edge out the 128-120 win at home.
This seems to be the consistent theme of the Rockets’ season thus far. Harden will continue to put up incredible stat-lines like this all year, but the team can’t stop a nosebleed and does not have enough secondary playmakers. They will eventually get Patrick Beverley back from injury and that should help them out on both ends of the floor.
As it stands now, the Rockets are far too reliant on James Harden to have success, as evidenced by their 2-2 record. That’s not an entirely terrible strategy, however, considering how phenomenal the Bearded One has been thus far.
