Kristian Winfield: James Harden’s playoff disappearing act was predictable — except to the Cavs
NEW YORK — The end to the New York Knicks-Cleveland Cavaliers Eastern Conference finals was written long before the series began. It was an elephant in the room the second the Cavaliers miraculously upset the No. 1-seeded Detroit Pistons to punch a ticket to the Eastern Conference finals and a date with the Knicks.
Cleveland’s season was going to end one way — and one way only — the second the Cavaliers paired James Harden and Donovan Mitchell, two of the NBA’s most fraudulent All-Stars who joined forces to fall-apart in-tandem in the playoffs. Harden was a no-show in Game 1 against the Knicks — 15 points on 16 shot attempts, three assists to six turnovers on his stat sheet in a blown 22-point lead — before completely vanishing through in Game 2 (18 points, 6-of-15 shooting, two assists). Mitchell scored 29 points through the first three quarters of Game 1, did not score or look to score in the fourth quarter or overtime, then had 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting through the first three quarters of Game 2 before filling the stat sheet in a late-game blowout.
Yet all of this was predictable, except to Cavs president of basketball operations Koby Altman and general manager Mike Gansey. Their home-run swing for a first-ballot Hall of Famer who doubles as one of the most polarizing talents in NBA history backfired in the most appropriate manner possible. The Cavs traded 25-year-old All-Star Darius Garland for an 11-time, 36-year-old, well-past-his-prime superstar in Harden.
Harden is many things — one of the league’s most gifted play-makers and, in his prime, isolation scorers — but he’s mostly been a disappearing act under pressure in the playoffs: 38% shooting from the field and 29% shooting from 3-point range in the semifinals against the Detroit Pistons, and now a 11 of 31 from the field with five assists and six turnovers through the first two games against the Knicks. And this is the player Cavs brass entrusted with raising the ceiling of their franchise, a magician whose disappearing act rivals few others of his stature as an NBA-recognized Top-75 player. The Cavaliers brought him in to assist in helping another player who’s been prone to late-season meltdowns in his own right.
Harden was supposed to take pressure off of Mitchell. Instead, the opposite has transpired: His late-game absences put more pressure on Mitchell to deliver. Maybe, for Cleveland, the mission is already complete: A Cavaliers team without LeBron James made the conference finals for the first time since 1992 and for just the second time in franchise history.