Courtside
By Anthony L. Cuaycong
The Lakers were pumped. Heading into the Toyota Center, they figured they could generate the momentum they needed to prove, at the very least to themselves, that they could win under pressure with consistency even absent top dog LeBron James. That was certainly what they did against the highly regarded Thunder last Friday, hanging tough in overtime after looking lost and ripe for the picking early on. And for a while there, it looked as if they possessed the resolve to do so anew against the Rockets on the road.
Indeed, the Lakers pounced on the 2018 Western Conference finalists from the get-go, erecting a lead that ballooned to as many as 21 points and that stood at 18 after two quarters. And then something happened. James Harden happened. With the visitors seemingly putting the cuffs on the Rockets’ vaunted offense, he got to work in the crunch and led a comeback to force overtime. It didn’t matter that the deficit still stood in double figures late in the fourth quarter. Never mind that he seemed off up until then, his streak of 30-point games looked to be in jeopardy.
As things turned out, the Rockets wound up with a victory they didn’t have any business claiming. Harden’s 22-point explosion in the last 12 and a half minutes of yesterday’s contest kept alive his historic streak of 30-marker outputs to 19 matches, not to mention the bid of the red and white to stay within range of homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs. It has been a grind for him; with nine-time All-Star Chris Paul remaining decommissioned by a hamstring injury and pick-and-roll partner Clint Capela likewise sidelined, he has carried much of the load.
Creditably, Harden has delivered, and in spades. He has put up at least 40 in 10 of the last 13, and he came to within a basket of turning in a third-consecutive 50-point stat line. And it’s no coincidence that the Rockets’ record through his continuing assault on the record books stands at a heady 14-5. How long he can keep performing at an otherworldly level while getting little to no rest remains to be seen. Yesterday, he looked less springy to start, finding the energy only with the set-to on the line.
In any case, Harden isn’t leaving anything in the tank, if for nothing else than because he can’t. En route, he has rightly turned the Most Valuable Player discussion, once dominated by the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo, into a two-man race. Meanwhile, the Rockets are thriving, with their fingers crossed he can keep carrying them until the hardware is in sight.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994.