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.
James Harden now holds the NBA playoff record for most games with 10+ shot attempts & 2 or fewer makes, with TEN GAMES like that. pic.twitter.com/ts9hfc86ZQ
— nick wright (@getnickwright) May 2, 2024
Luka tonight: Harden tonight:
35 PTS 7 PTS
10 AST 4 TOV
14/26 FG 2/12 FG
+ 30 – 25— Not very similar players imo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/71U1DzX7X4
— MavsMuse (@MavsMuse) May 2, 2024
Funny, I don’t see any Harden > Wade tweets tonight pic.twitter.com/qmwLsXXPe8
— HEAT NATION (@Zachppp) May 2, 2024
Regular season Harden vs playoff Harden pic.twitter.com/BpB7aI9Dup
— Jasmine (@JasmineLWatkins) May 2, 2024
Jaden Hardy outscored James Harden in this game… in 5 minutes pic.twitter.com/BVfw4JcnxP
— Real Sports (@realapp_) May 2, 2024
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.
