James Harden has found it tough to get it going, after his sensational, 45-point, Game 1 performance in the ongoing Eastern Conference Semi-finals against the Boston Celtics. Skip Bayless, who has been calling him Jim Harden all along, saw it coming from a distance.
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Game 3, in Philly, was not turning out any different for the 76ers’ point guard, than Game 2. In the abysmal 121-87 loss, The Beard could only help with 12 points, shooting 2-off-14 from the field and 0-off-6 from the 3-point line.
Harden brought that form to the Wells Fargo Center to give away the Celtics their home advantage, for which he had fought so hard, to set the Sixers 1-0 up in the series without their MVP.
Skip Bayless thrashes James Harden for coming up short in helping Joel Embiid
He might find it tough to praise a player, but 71-year-old, Skip Bayless doesn’t skip a beat to mock players when they don’t perform. And especially the players who have been his regular targets, and James Harden is one of them.
As the Sixers were getting beat by the Celtics in the 1st game back in Philadelphia, Harden was 1/7 going into half-time with just 8 points as the Cs led the game 57-50. So, Skip asked him to help out Joel Embiid a little more in the game instead of giving him a $41,500 Rolex after his MVP press conference a day before.
“James Harden: from 45 points to get-me-back-to-Houston nightmare. Appreciate him giving Embiid an MVP Rolex. But it would matter a lot more if he’d just give Embiid some HELP,” Tweeted Bayless.
As we speak, the Celtics’ lead the game by 10 points at 110-100. Harden has not many more shots from the field (3/11) but has added 8 more points to the tally. However, he is helping Joel with assists. This year’s assists leader has 10 assists with over 3 minutes remaining in the game clock.
A better game from James would have helped much better than the Rolex
The 2018 MVP gifted his millionaire teammate an 18-Karat gold, 40mm Everose Day-Date Rolex watch, engraved with 2023 MVP. It was quite like a welcome to the MVP club gesture by the 10x All-Star.
However, he followed it up with a 16-point (3/14) performance in the 114-102 Game 3 loss. If only it was a one-off playoff meltdown, most might ignore it. But everyone in the NBA community has seen this picture year after year, and nobody wanted Embiid to have a promising star teammate who’d come up short after Ben Simmons.
