Philadelphia 76ers star James Harden is under some heat on Friday after a poor performance on Thursday where he shot just 3-for-17 in a 129-100 home loss to the Brooklyn Nets. It was another big game where Harden has come up a bit small in his career.
Of course, a regular season game doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. The Sixers are headed for the playoffs while the Nets are still fighting for a playoff spot so that could be the reason why Brooklyn played so desperately and why Harden had his issues.
ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins came to the defense of Harden when asked about his big-game struggles:
How concerned am I about a guy that is averaging 28 points for his career in the playoffs? I’m not concerned. Look, I understand about the moment last night and all that but guess what? These next six games I get it the 76ers, they have to play Orlando Magic, then they play the Nuggets, the Cavaliers, the Mavericks, the Raptors, and the Heat. So I think those games are going to determine whether or not James Harden can bounce back. See, that’s that’s what I look at. Not just last night, I want to look at the bounce back and to see how Philly overall is going to have the adversity, but as far as James, I have no concerns whatsoever, because it’s not just him. He has Joel Embiid to help him out. They both struggled last night, but James was just not into it. I already gave credit to Kyrie Irving. Kyrie Irving completely took him out of the game. Kyrie Irving completely made this personal. He took it personal. Do I’m not disregarding that James Harden stunk the building up yesterday. He did, but am I concerned that he’s gonna continue to play like this? Or do I have any type of oh you know thoughts in my head that he’s gonna struggle like this the remainder of the season, and in the postseason? No Molly, I’m not.
It will be interesting to see how Harden and the Sixers will respond to the debacle when they hit the road to take on the Orlando Magic on Sunday.
This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!
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