In today's NBA regular season, the Clippers challenged the Thunder away, and Leonard was suspended back-to-back, but the Clippers suffered a big collapse on the road, trailing the Thunder 59-64 at halftime. Harden scored 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting in the half, almost completely locked up by the opponent, and without a small card, the current Harden is nothing!
After a week of regular season play, Harden was traded to the Clippers as he wished, and after a wave of six consecutive losses in the opening season, Harden gradually integrated into the Clippers, winning nine consecutive games in the last nine games, all the way up from 11th in the West to 4th in the West. During this period, Harden's performance appeared, not only with a crazy scoring performance of 35 points and 21 points in a half quarter in a single game, but also with a number of consecutive assists and double-doubles, and he had the potential to dream of returning to the top, with an average contribution of 20 per game for nine consecutive wins3 points 93 assists, which was touted by the fans.
So the question is, does Harden really dream of returning to the top?The answer is obviously not 100% sure, and today's game against the Thunder is the best proof of that. Leonard was suspended, the Clippers trailed the Thunder 29-35 in the first quarter, and the point difference once reached double digits, and Harden scored only 3 points on 1-of-8 shooting in a single quarter, and was blown up by opponents on both offensive and defensive ends. In the second quarter of the game, Harden missed 3 shots at the beginning, and the data reached 1 of 11. Luckily, Harden shot all three of his next three shots, scoring 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting in the half, but shooting less than 30 percent from the field.
During the previous nine-game winning streak, Harden's form also had ups and downs, but there was never such an inefficient performance as today, and the biggest difference was that there was no Leonard in today's game against the Thunder. Without the containment of the small card, Harden is frequently caught in the bag, and the offensive efficiency has dropped significantly. Objectively speaking, Harden scored 11 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists on 4-of-14 shooting in the half, which is not a bad statistic, but compared to Harden during the nine-game winning streak, this statistic is a bit worse. This also proves once again that the Clippers' No. 1 star is not Harden, but Leonard!
59-64 at halftime, the Clippers didn't fall behind much, considering the back-to-back battles, and the back-to-back away games, coupled with the absence of small cards and referee factors, the Clippers' performance was not bad. But for Harden, the efficiency of 4-of-14 in the half is really not high, so don't blow it up and keep trying!