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The Resurrection of James Harden

La resurrección de James Harden

When five days ago the Sixers came back from Miami with a 2-0 deficit and a feeling of tremendous impotence, few could think of the place where we were going to be at this hour. In a tie tied on the scoreboard (2-2) and with the Philadelphia team taking the lead in the game, physically and spiritually. The series has changed its face, it has completely turned around. The best team in the East in the regular season, the Heat, they’ve gotten into a mess very fat. They have allowed a beast that seemed asleep to wake up. James Harden is back. Joel Embiid is back. The Philadelphia 76ers have appeared in the best version that could be expected of them.

of all these things the most unlikely seemed Harden, a player who has not been at his best level for more than two years. Due to a lack of motivation, due to poor physical preparation, due to the change in the way of refereeing, due to not getting along with his teammates… Many have been the reasons that have been put forward in this time to explain his slow but unstoppable decline since his better times in Houston. Everyone is probably right. Today things seemed to go the same way when at the end of the first quarter the shooting guard had 0 pointsuntil a triple in the second set unleashed the storm. He went to rest with 13 and added another 18 more in the second half until the final 31, becoming the top scorer for his team. And the most important, several of those points were in the final minutes, when the Heat were still aiming for the victory thanks, above all, to a Jimmy Butler who was too lonely again. Although this time, unlike the third match, he was closer to leading his team to victory.

He went to 40 points and his effort in the third quarterwhen time and time again he put his team fully into the fight (74-70… 89-85…) it was admirable. This time he did have Bam Adebayo as a guarantee companion (21+7), but the rest of the team was rather missing. In the first half they were saved by the losses of the locals (10), which they converted into 13 points, but the terrible 3-point percentage (20%) It ended up weighing them down completely. And the worst news may be yet to come with Kyle Lowry, who was playing his first minutes since Game 3 against Atlanta on April 22had to pay a visit to the locker room in the first part with problems in the hamstrings, he was seen to be quite far from being 100% and Eric Spoelstra questioned his participation in the fifth game of the series.

With everything and with that the Heat were 5 points away with three minutes remaining for the end. It was then that Harden hit his fifth triple of the nightone of several baskets of The beard in it bag. Shortly after he was going to hit the sixth and last of the night to make it 114-103 and unleash the madness of the stands, which he was watching as his star signing scored 16 points in a stellar last quarter. The question is whether Harden is capable of repeating this performance on a regular basis from now on. If he does it and Embiid plays like today, the Sixers automatically become playoff favorites. The return of the Cameroonian was key in the previous victory because his presence and his transcendence over his teammates gave him the necessary impetus to steal the first point of the series, but not because he played a great game. But 48 hours later he has returned to the Embiid contender for MVP, as they well remembered him with songs from the stands. With a brilliant first quarter (15 points) to show that he was back, the center was going to finish with 24 points and 11 rebounds and the confirmation that Miami will have a very difficult time stopping him with the defensive weapons at its disposal. To make matters worse for those from Florida, the rest of the Sixers’ starters, Maxey, Harris and Green, finished in double digits in scoring and over 50% shooting from the field. They have plugged Harden, Embiid remembers the best Embiid, the secondary are involved and successful … The worst possible scenario for Miami is here and they only have 48 hours to think about how to solve it.

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