James harden stats vs heat9/16/2023 As recently as the 2019-2020 season, Harden was drawing 11.8 free throw attempts per game. Harden has been the league’s most reliable free throw generator for years, but this season he’s only getting to the line three times per game. Harden is failing to score efficiently for a variety of reasons, but it’s easy to point to his lack of free throws as the main culprit. He’s among the NBA leaders in turnovers, too. Harden’s numbers are brutal for his standards through the first five games: He’s averaging 16.6 points, eight assists, and 4.6 turnovers per game on paltry 49.1 percent true shooting. The biggest reason for Brooklyn’s slow start, other than Irving’s absence, has been Harden’s uncharacteristically sluggish play. Somehow, Brooklyn has the third worst offense in the NBA. The Nets lost at home to the Miami Heat, 106-93, on Wednesday night to fall to 2-3 on the season. That’s because Harden could be counted on to carry the offensive shot creation just as he had done throughout his career.Īt the start of the new season, it’s clear it’s not working yet. While the absence of Irving limited just how explosive Brooklyn could be, they still had enough weapons to be considered the favorite even without him. That was before Irving took himself out of action by refusing to take the Covid-19 vaccine. Maybe it would have been different if Durant wore slightly smaller shoes, but it wasn’t meant to be.īrooklyn entered this season as the overwhelming favorite to win the championship. By the time he came back, Irving was also hurt, and not even Durant’s historic individual scoring run could save the season. He would return for the last three games of the series, but he clearly wasn’t himself. Harden went down with a hamstring injury in the first minute of the first game of Brooklyn’s second round series against the Milwaukee Bucks. Unfortunately for the Nets, they weren’t healthy. It wasn’t a stretch to think a healthy Nets team with Durant, Harden, and Irving would roll through the playoffs on the way to a championship. The Nets put up the most efficient offense in league history even with their big three barely sharing the court together in the regular season. Harden carried Brooklyn up the Eastern Conference standings last season while Durant and Irving missed significant time. Namely: generate layups and free throws for himself, and wide open three-pointers for his teammates. This should have been his basketball nirvana: flanked by two of the greatest shooters ever in Kevin Durant and Irving, plus one of the best shooting specialists in today’s game in Joe Harris, Harden had an ocean of room to saunter into the lane and do what he does best. When the Nets cashed in all their future assets to rescue Harden from the Houston Rockets a few weeks into last season, he was supposed to be Brooklyn’s third superstar and the final piece of a team that had the talent to become a dynasty. For the last decade, there has been perhaps no player in the NBA better suited to handle it. The specter of Kyrie Irving’s extended absence from the Brooklyn Nets was always going to put a heavier burden of shot creation on the shoulders of James Harden.
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