It is easy to be merciless toward millionaire athletes and coaches who preside over a train wreck in a decisive moment of a late-stage playoff game.
“THESE GUYS GET PAID SO MUCH! THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HIGHLY-TRAINED! THEY’VE SPENT THEIR LIVES DREAMING ABOUT PLAYING FOR A SPOT IN THE NBA FINALS! HOW COULD THEY LOOK SO AMATEURISH IN THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENT OF THE SEASON?!”
James Harden and Kevin McHale caught plenty of fury last night, or if not fury, certainly the tidal-wave of second-guessing that comes with a fireball of a possession, a possession — you could say — in which a Rocket ship blew up shortly after taking off.
Houston generated an unexpectedly clean lift-off late in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals against Golden State. Having trailed by 11 with 1:57 left in Game 1, Houston pulled within two points in the final 15 seconds before falling short by four. In light of this reality, the conventional wisdom suggested that the Warriors weren’t going to wobble in a similar scenario — not on their home floor. Yet, that’s exactly what happened in Game 2. Houston, down eight with 1:39 left and seven with 1:20 left, scored six straight points and confused the Warriors’ offense on consecutive possessions in the final 80 seconds of regulation. The Rockets unexpectedly got their mitts on the ball with eight seconds left.
James Harden — he of the otherworldly 38-point, 10-rebound, 9-assists, 3-steal stat line that put Houston in a position to win — had the ball in his hands. The Rockets — coaches, players, trainers, executives, waterboys, and fans — could not have asked for anything more than that.
Yet, you know how it all unfolded:
Harden couldn’t find Terrence Jones streaking to the basket. He saw a trailer out of the corner of his eye, much as Georgetown’s Fred Brown saw North Carolina’s James Worthy out of the corner of his eye in the 1982 NCAA national championship game. Harden probably thought that trailer was a capable jump shooter, but it was Dwight Howard. Harden asked for — and received — a quick return pass, but that little sequence robbed the Rockets of both time and court vision. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson — teammates but no longer Splash Brothers, since only Curry has done the splashing in these West finals — were able to hem in Harden after that return pass from Howard. They prevented the best player on the floor from releasing a game-winning shot. Golden State survived by a single point to take a 2-0 lead in this series.
Several things went wrong for Houston on that play, and the point of this examination is not to deny any of the mishaps which occurred in that sequence.
The purpose of this piece is to underscore something we lose track of as sports fans and pundits from time to time: Sometimes, it’s not about a severe tactical misplay or a lack of thought. Sometimes, sports simply happens. That’s life, and that’s any endeavor undertaken by talented and creative but imperfect mortal beings.
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Realize this about James Harden: He’s not “merely” a brilliant player. He is a deliberate player. He is entirely comfortable dribbing down the shot clock or game clock and making a decisive move at the end. He did this so often in Game 2, patiently working his way into the lane to set up a teammate on one of his nine assists. He did this as a scorer-shooter, finishing three-point stepbacks or mid-range bullets after an ample amount of dribbles. No, this is not the 2014 Spurs, the 1977 Trail Blazers, or the 1973 Knicks, a symphonic succession of sweet and coordinated passes. It’s iso-ball, but Harden makes it work more than just about any other player in the Association. It’s his comfort zone. It’s how he plays the game.
Be honest with yourself: Are you really going to call timeout when James Harden has the orange in his hands with eight or five or even three seconds left?
The NBA is a player’s league, in marked contrast to the coach-centric realm of college basketball. The NBA is a form of basketball in which superstars are trusted to make plays. Sometimes, though, superstars fail.
Isiah Thomas failed at the end of Game 5 of the 1987 Eastern Conference finals in Boston Garden between the Detroit Pistons and the Boston Celtics.
Patrick Ewing failed at the end of Game 7 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers.
Great players can play great games and then fail at the very end. This has happened many times in the past. It will happen in the future. It is part of the constant unpredictability of sport, the theater which flows from immensely skilled human beings remaining imperfect and organic creatures, not machines.
Larry Bird didn’t miss many pressure free throws in his life, but he missed a few. Magic Johnson had to wear Game 7 of the 1984 NBA Finals as an albatross around his neck before he expunged that ghost with his triumph the next year, in the 1985 Finals against Boston. Scottie Pippen bore the full weight of responsibility in the 1990 Eastern Conference finals against the Detroit Pistons before becoming a next-level sidekick to Michael Jordan and transforming the way he — and the Chicago Bulls — would be remembered.
Great players — Hall of Fame players — still fail.
On a night when Steph Curry and James Harden shared the floor and played like the two best players in the NBA — which is what they in fact were this past season — one of them was going to lose. This brings up the eternal reminder about sports: You don’t just win in one manner, chiefly by scoring or flourishing. Sometimes, you win because your opponent makes a mistake.
Winning due to an opponent’s mistake — and not your own brilliance — doesn’t make a win any less honest or legitimate. Yes, it can raise questions about your own team’s ability to drive a stake into an opponent’s heart — this is the central question facing a Warrior team whose inexperience at this stage of the playoffs is showing, despite the 2-0 series lead — but it shouldn’t cast any kind of shadow over a victory. (An egregious blown call is a different matter.) Golden State stumbled at the end of Game 2. Fortunately for the Warriors, James Harden picked the wrong time to make a mistake which — if committed at the end of the first or third quarters — wouldn’t be talked about at all in the aftermath.
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If today you hear the harsh voice of talk radio burying the Houston Rockets’ superstar for that last sequence in Game 2… Harden not your hearts.
