While James Harden has been one of the NBA’s top scorers throughout his career, his playoff performances have often fallen well short of his regular-season standard. That happened on Wednesday night as Harden and the Los Angeles Lakers fell to the Dallas Mavericks.
The Clippers were on the wrong end of a 123-93 final score. With the loss, Los Angeles gave home-court advantage in the series back to the Mavericks. Harden was 2-for-12 from the field, 1-for-7 on threes. He finished with just seven points and Los Angeles was -25 with him on the court. And while a 30-point loss can’t be blamed on just one player, his performance certainly didn’t help.
As the game was wrapping up, Harden came under fire for another poor performance in a big playoff game.
Fortunately for Harden and the Clippers, Wednesday’s loss didn’t end the season. Game 6 will be played in Dallas on Friday night. But if the series is going to return to Los Angeles for a Game 7, Harden’s Game 6 will need to be significantly better than his Game 5 was.
About Michael Dixon
About Michael:
-- Writer/editor for thecomeback.com and awfulannouncing.com.
-- Bay Area born and raised, currently living in the Indianapolis area.
-- Twitter:
@mfdixon1985 (personal).
@michaeldixonsports (work).
-- Email: mdixon@thecomeback.com
Send tips, corrections, comments and (respectful) disagreements to that email. Do the same with pizza recommendations, taco recommendations and Seinfeld quotes.