James Harden has been under scrutiny throughout the playoffs, either for low shooting percentage or high turnovers. In Game 6 against the Detroit Pistons, he had the team high 23 points, but again, his eight turnovers were one of the reasons why the Cavs lost. There was another indirect mistake of his that led to another turnover in the final quarter. Amid this, the Beard has called out his teammates for better intensity and better protection.
For the first time in a decade, the Cleveland Cavaliers had the chance to advance to the Eastern Conference finals. But the inconsistency slipped in. Harden said that he was unhappy with the level of intensity from his teammates. “I think we didn’t start off the game well. We still had the lead and then just throughout the course of the game, we never really kicked to that second level or even third level, which is the level we get to three or four, but you never really got it to the level.” It was a frustrating experience for the 36-year-old, and he even wanted the Cavs to be a better defensive unit.
“Our defense has to be the priority from the beginning of the game until the last buzzer. That’s priority number one. And I don’t think we necessarily did that from the beginning of the game until the final buzzer, which is the reason why we didn’t play well. We feed off our defense, our energy comes from our defense, and we didn’t do that well enough like they did.”
Speaking of intensity and effort, the Pistons converted 13 offensive rebounds into 20 points and had 48 points in the paint, 22 more than the home team managed. The Pistons were up 54-41 at halftime and started the second half with a 12-2 run, which signified that the Cavs failed to operate on another level. Their defensive problems were also apparent.
The Cavaliers had 2 more turnovers than the away team (20), but the problem was the margin of points conceded. Detroit conceded just 17; meanwhile, the Cavs gave up 28 points. One of them was an unfortunate mistake caused by Harden.
James Harden comes into the spotlight for the wrong reasons
It was after Game 2, when the 11x All-Star ended with just 10 points, on 3 of 13 shooting and 4 turnovers. One of those late mistakes helped Detroit seal the win. Now, once again, inadvertently, there was a mistake from James Harden, which led to his teammate slipping and the Pistons converting the chance. With 6:20 remaining in the final frame, Harden missed a 25-foot three-point jumper and also went for a theatrical fall.
Just moments later, as Cavaliers forward Dean Wade ran up to receive the inbound pass from Harden, Wade slipped on the same spot his All-Star teammate had just covered in sweat. Wade’s slip-up led to an uncontested fastbreak dunk for Tobias Harris to extend Detroit’s lead to 100-85. It was another turnover for James Harden, and it was the 31st time in his playoff career that he finished with more turnovers than made field goals, and the fifth time this postseason alone.
His eight Game 7 appearances in his career also put a doubt in fans. Harden is averaging just 19.1 points, shooting a brutal 35.3 percent from the field (22.2 percent from three) with 3.8 turnovers.
