NBA fans received a special treat this Memorial Day Weekend: two game sevens in the Conference Finals, something that has not happened since 1979. Home teams win game sevens 80% of the time but this time around the road team prevailed both times: Cleveland beat Boston 87-79 to win the Eastern Conference for the fourth straight time and Golden State defeated Houston 101-92 to win the Western Conference for the fourth straight time. This will be the first time in NBA history that the same two teams have met in the NBA Finals four years in a row.
A player's career should not be defined by one game, one series or even one season but it is fair to say that over a period of time a superstar will display the ability to consistently elevate his play in crucial moments in order to lift his team to victory. This trait is not necessarily defined by statistics but rather by impact, which may be hard to quantify at times but is recognizable to those who watch the sport with an informed eye. LeBron James struggled to have that kind of impact during some of his early playoff runs, culminating in disappointing performances versus Boston (2010 Eastern Conference semifinals) and Dallas (2011 Finals). While those failures will always be on James' resume, James has without question learned from those setbacks: he added a post up game, a midrange jump shot and even a three point shot to his offensive arsenal--and, more importantly, he finally accepted that as his team's best player he must carry the scoring burden during key moments against top playoff teams. As a result, James has led his teams to eight straight NBA Finals (Miami, 2011-14; Cleveland 2015-18) and won three championships (2012-13, 16). James has also authored some signature performances in elimination games, including several pressure-packed game sevens.
James' performance on Sunday versus Boston ranks among his very best and most significant, as he posted 35 points on 12-24 field goal shooting while also leading both teams in rebounds (15) and assists (nine) in a full 48 minutes of action. James' teammates did their part by playing excellent defense collectively while also making just enough shots to keep the defense honest. There is a lot of talk about how James is doing so much with little help but if you look back at pro basketball history most championship teams are led by a player who accepts the burden of scoring a ton of points and/or drawing so much defensive attention that his less talented teammates have wide open shots; that is not meant to take anything away from James but rather to emphasize how much he is making it clear that his name belongs on the short list of candidates for greatest basketball player of all-time. During the second half of James' career, he is showing that he understands aspects of basketball greatness demonstrated by Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, who each led their respective teams to at least five NBA titles.
I have steadfastly resisted the temptation to rank the players within my Pantheon but I will say that James' level of play during the 2018 playoffs is most impressive. I wish that James had the Jordan/Bryant mentality about every single game--including regular season games in January and February--but during the playoffs James is accepting the challenge to be great and to impose his will on the game. He is not standing passively beyond the three point line but rather he is attacking the hoop, while also selectively unleashing the midrange and long range shots that he gradually added to his repertoire over the past few years.
James was fantastic during Sunday's game seven at Boston but his performance was only a little above "average" compared to his numbers during the series (33.6 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 8.4 apg) and during the entire 2018 playoffs (34.0 ppg, 9.2 rpg, 8.8 apg). When he is engaged, James is clearly still the best/most outstanding player in the NBA. Whether or not he is the "most valuable" depends on how you define "value," as his Cavaliers only posted the fourth best record in the East while often looking even worse than that ranking.
The other game seven featured two former regular season MVPs--Kevin Durant (2014) and Stephen Curry (2015-16)--plus the presumptive 2018 regular season MVP James Harden. Durant and 2017 regular season MVP Russell Westbrook teamed up to lead Oklahoma City to a 3-1 lead over Curry's Golden State Warriors during the 2016 playoffs but after Golden State won that series Durant decided that since he did not beat the Warriors he might as well join them. Durant played marvelously well while winning the 2017 Finals MVP as the Warriors captured their second title in three years, though it is a little hard to assess Durant's "value" since the Warriors had already posted 73 regular season wins (in 2016) and won a title (in 2015) without him.
Another interesting subplot of the Golden State-Houston series is that before Harden forced his way to the Rockets he had been Oklahoma City's third option behind Durant and Westbrook; that seemed to be an ideal role for Harden but Harden wanted to prove that he could be the man. Unfortunately for Harden, since departing Oklahoma City he has assembled a playoff resume that makes it abundantly clear that when the chips are down he is not James, Durant or Curry--and Monday's game seven is just the most recent example confirming this.
During Golden State's game seven win over Houston, Durant led Golden State with 34 points on 11-21 field goal shooting, including 5-11 from three point range. He also had five rebounds, five assists, three blocked shots and just two turnovers. Curry added 27 points on 10-22 field goal shooting, including 7-15 from three point range. Curry contributed 10 assists, nine rebounds and five steals.
Yet, despite both of those players playing very well, Houston took a 54-43 halftime lead and was 24 minutes away from advancing to the NBA Finals. That type of situation is where a superstar takes over and imposes his will on the game. Instead, Harden posted a -13 plus/minus number during game seven, tied with Clint Capela for second worst on the team behind only Trevor Ariza (-15), who shot 0-12 from the field in 42 scoreless minutes. Harden finished with 32 points on 12-29 field goal shooting, including a couple meaningless buckets in the last minute that barely boosted his field goal percentage for the game above .400. He shot an abysmal 2-13 from three point range, "leading" a record-setting barrage of missed three pointers: the Rockets now own the NBA single game playoff records for most three pointers missed (37) and most consecutive three pointers missed (27). The Rockets started out 6-14 from three point range as they built a 15 point first half lead and then they made just one of their next 30 three point attempts.
When comparing Harden to MVP caliber players, it is worth looking at Harden's entire series, not just game seven. Harden missed 22 straight three pointers over a three game stretch, including an NBA playoff single game record 0-11 performance in Houston's 98-94 game five win. Harden scored 19 points on 5-21 field goal shooting in game five but the Rockets prevailed thanks to Chris Paul's clutch second half scoring. Paul injured his hamstring in the final moments of game five but the Rockets still had a golden opportunity to advance to the NBA Finals in game six; the Rockets led 61-51 at halftime but collapsed in the second half, scoring just 25 points as Golden State won 115-86.
Harden shot 5-9 from three point range in Houston's game one win, then made just eight of his next 44 three point attempts. Houston Coach Mike D'Antoni was unconcerned: "Boy, he's due, right? Next game he might make 10 straight, right? The thermostat will go off." The thermostat did not exactly go off: Harden shot 4-12 from three point range in game six as Golden State won 115-86 and he followed that up by shooting 2-13 from three point range in game seven. Harden shot 19-78 (.244) from three point range overall during the series and 52-174 (.299) from three point range during the 2018 NBA playoffs. That is just not good enough for superstar status, particularly for a player who is touted as the best one on one player ever primarily because of his supposedly unstoppable stepback three pointer; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook was unstoppable, as was Michael Jordan's turnaround shot in the midpost, but Harden's shot is nowhere near that category.
When Harden's three pointers are not falling, his backup plan is to flop/fall down and pray that the officials bail him out with foul calls. Just to be clear, Harden is a strong and talented player who has a knack for drawing fouls; it is also true that he is a flopper who tries to fool the officials, which is a tactic that should not be necessary for a player who supposedly has an unstoppable weapon. Abdul-Jabbar and Jordan both had the ability to draw fouls but during crunch time situations they put the ball in the basket as opposed to relying on an official to save them.
Again, this is not about judging Harden based on one game or even based on one series but rather based on a consistent pattern. For instance, Harden had a game six meltdown as the San Antonio Spurs eliminated the Rockets during last year's playoffs; while his individual game seven numbers versus Golden State this year are much better than his game six numbers versus the Spurs last year, it should be noted that Harden has now presided over the largest blown halftime lead for a home team in a seventh game. Rather than making excuses for Harden, root causes must be sought and identified. Magic Johnson led his team to victory as a rookie on the road in game six of the 1980 NBA Finals despite not having the services of injured regular season MVP Abdul-Jabbar and Walt Frazier led the Knicks to the 1970 NBA title despite regular season MVP Willis Reed being hobbled by injury. Paul is not Abdul-Jabbar or Reed, so if Harden is as good as he is supposed to be then he should be able to take over for a 24 minute stretch.
"Analytics" is a popular topic in NBA circles but when evaluating Harden and the Rockets I utilize the analytics that I applied to Gilbert Arenas years ago: a player (or a team, for that matter) that relies too much on erratic three point shooting without having a sound backup plan on offense and consistent effort on defense is not going to win a title; as I wrote about Arenas, if he shoots 6-9 from three point range in one playoff game and 1-9 in the next that adds up to a solid .389 three point percentage but his team would likely go 1-1 at best, losing the second game for sure and possibly losing the first game as well unless the team defense was very good. Just like Arenas had no backup plan other than to jack up more and more shots, the current Rockets have no backup plan other than to jack up tons of three pointers. The Rockets are a high variance team, which is why I predicted that they could very well blow out the Warriors by more than 20 points in one game and still lose the series.
The Rockets pushed their three pointers at all costs concept about as far as possible this season, winning 65 games and advancing to the Western Conference Finals--but I will stick to my guns until proven otherwise: (1) no team is going to win a championship playing this way and (2) no team is going to win a championship by relying on Harden as its best player. All Harden had to do to reach the Finals is have one signature half in either game six or game seven; Paul and his teammates had carried him to the brink of the Finals but Harden twice proved incapable of taking the final step. We have seen this script with Harden in the playoffs for years and it is unlikely to change. Some might argue that if Paul had been healthy then the Rockets would have won. That might be true, just like it might be true that if Golden State's Andre Iguodala (the 2015 NBA Finals MVP) had been healthy then the Warriors may have won the series in less than seven games, but if Paul had been healthy and the Rockets had won it is almost certain that Harden would have had a subsidiary role, as he did during Houston's game five victory.
Some may defend Harden by stating that Durant and Curry can rely on each other while Harden lacked enough help with Paul sidelined due to injury--but the reality is that Harden has been hyped up as the consensus regular season MVP and his team enjoyed home court advantage in game seven based on lapping the field during the regular season. The second halves of both game six and game seven were prime opportunities for Harden to validate his status as the game's best player--but he emphatically failed to do that and, as a result, James, Durant and Curry will battle for the real heavyweight crown, regardless of what hardware Harden will receive for his 2018 regular season exploits.
A Tale of Two Game Sevens: The Difference Between Being a Superstar and Being an All-Star
