When a team is taking on a challenge such as Brooklyn Nets star James Harden who is one of the best players in the league with the way he can score the ball, it takes a team effort. The Philadelphia 76ers found that out quickly as they got to work in slowing him down.
Harden’s numbers look good in the final stat sheet. He had 26 points, 10 assists, and eight rebounds, but in the third quarter, his opportunities were not there as they were at the beginning of the game.
Coach Doc Rivers moved Ben Simmons over to the explosive star and he did a terrific job, but the team also received big efforts from Matisse Thybulle and Danny Green. Those three shut Harden down from the middle of the third quarter on and they were able to shut down his driving lanes to the basket.
“It was more in the third quarter, but I also thought having Ben guard him and then being able to switch the pick-and-rolls with Matisse and Danny it wasn’t just one guy,” said Rivers. “I thought that having that group on the floor at the same time, getting out on the break, getting stops I thought, just the force that we played with knowing that they played last night, as well, really helped.”
Those three are such instinctual defenders and they have the length and size to bother anybody thrown their way. Harden is such a smart player and he will normally find any mismatch and he will hunt them, but with those three on the floor, he had a tough time doing so.
“It’s hard when you got those three guys on the floor,” said Joel Embiid. “Especially because other teams start to hunt some mismatches. There’s not a lot of them on the floor with those three guys so I thought they did a great job stopping the ball.”
As far as Embiid was concerned, he had to make a choice whenever Harden drove which was a lot of the time. He is so adept at finishing tough floaters and also being able to find anybody off the lob as he did with DeAndre Jordan a lot early. The trio of defenders made it tougher to do that.
“At times a lot tonight, they went in there together to make sure that didn’t get any driving lanes,” said Embiid. “There was a few times where, actually, a lot of times where James just kept driving to the basket and basically I had to guess between contesting the shot or stay with DJ to make sure they don’t get a lob. We just got to play it safe with those types of situations, but overall, I thought we did an okay job.”
With Simmons being the primary defender on Harden and then having Thybulle and Green jumping out on switches when the Nets were trying to run a pick-and-roll, it made life miserable for the 2018 MVP. The Sixers ended the third quarter on a 23-7 run on their way to the win due to the defensive coverage on Harden.