Game 1’s collapse isn’t on James Harden
Players can only react to the situations they are placed in.
May 19, 2026; New York, New York, USA; New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson (11) controls the ball against Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden (1) during the fourth quarter of game one of the eastern conference finals during the 2026 NBA playoffs at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images | Brad Penner-Imagn Images That was a soul-sucking loss for the Cleveland Cavaliers . To go from a 22-point lead with roughly seven minutes left in the fourth quarter to an overtime loss is beyond demoralizing.
Those who chose to engage in the toxic social media spaces had all of their darkest thoughts validated in a maddening echo chamber. Count me among those who went to bed depressed and wondering where it all went wrong. Spoiler: it went wrong in a lot of areas during those final seven minutes of the fourth quarter and overtime.
One of the common themes in the doomsday discourse centered around James Harden. It feels like the Cavaliers community operates in absolutes when it comes to Harden; either the Cavaliers were geniuses for bringing him in, or he needs to be launched out of a cannon into the surface of the sun. But Harden in Game 1 was the victim of the true culprit behind Cleveland’s collapse: Kenny Atkinson.
Atkinson saw what every viewer saw, or at least he should’ve. The New York Knicks identified Harden as the weak point defensively and spammed the same action repeatedly, high screen-and-rolls designed to force Harden onto an island against one of the league’s most methodical isolation scorers in Jalen Brunson. The result was predictable.