James Harden is undoubtedly one of the best superstars the NBA has to offer. However, the biggest knock in his game is the fact that the crafty Houston Rockets guard doesn't have an NBA championship that he can call his own.
He's made the conference finals a couple of times and has consistently been in the playoff picture his entire career. The closest he's ever gotten to a championship was during the 2012 Finals when he, alongside a young Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, struggled to stop LeBron James and Chris Bosh from winning their first rings.
He has struggled to get back to the Promised Land since that fateful year, and fans understandably make fun of him for not winning a championship for all of his offensive prowess.
However, head coach Mike D'Antoni doesn't think that Harden is particularly struggling to perform during playoff situations. He believes that the man is performing as well as a star player should in tightly contested games.
“I don’t see any evidence,” D’Antoni said of Harden’s perceived playoff struggles, per USA Today's Mark Medina. “Has he had any 70-point games? No. Nobody in the playoffs does that.”
D'Antoni makes a valid point. The reason why Harden's getting almost 40 points a night this season is due to the hectic regular season schedule they have. Coaches don't have the time to completely analyze how one player operates as they have other games to worry about.
Things ramp up come playoff time. Coaches begin to devise cheeky defensive motions in order to catch Harden off-guard. However, The Beard was still unstoppable as he still scored 32 points a night.
Now that he has Russell Westbrook backing him up, the 30-year-old guard is looking dangerous as ever. This year is his biggest chance to win a championship, and he will do everything to get a ring with his name on it.
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