Miami Heat defensive specialist swingman P.J. Tucker chuckled when asked about defending his old Houston Rockets teammate three days before their Eastern Conference second-round playoff series began. Guarding the NBA’s greatest scorers is why Tucker has been playing in the NBA for 10 years after a five-year stint overseas. After guarding Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant full court in the postseason last season and Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young in this year’s first round, it was a no-brainer that Tucker would gladly take the unenviable challenge of guarding Harden. “You know I’m guarding James, for sure,” Tucker told Andscape during a phone call on Friday night. “No doubt. I got to guard James. There’s no two ways around it. He’s important to the team. He is who he is. They look for him to do what he does, and they want him to be him. And to win, we got to have to stop him. So that’s what I do.”