After dramatic shifts, James Harden finds sweet spot and puts Sixers on verge of conference finals

The future Hall of Famer was exceptional in Games 1 and 4 and dreadful in between. After discovering balance, Harden can help push these Sixers further than they have ever gone.

Sixers guard James Harden dribbles the basketball against Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown during Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinal playoffs at TD Garden in Boston on Tuesday, May 9, 2023.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Gina Mizell

Published May 11, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Doc Rivers made a baseball reference following the 76ers’ vital Game 5 victory at the Boston Celtics Tuesday night. The coach compared star guard James Harden to a catcher who called a perfect game for his pitcher, in the way he set the tone, ran the offense and picked his spots to score.

Harden’s dramatically shifting individual performance has been at the forefront of this entire second-round playoff series. The future Hall of Famer was exceptional in Games 1 and 4, delivering efficient 40-point outings and game-winning three-pointers in each matchup. He was dreadful in Games 2 and 3, making just five of his 28 field-goal attempts and drawing grumbles from the home crowd during glaringly passive moments.

Yet Harden found a sweet spot Tuesday night, finishing with 17 points on just eight shot attempts (and an 8-of-10 mark from the free-throw line) while adding 10 assists and eight rebounds in the Sixers’ 115-103 win to take a 3-2 series lead. The steadiness was more comparable to his All-Star-caliber regular season, when he led the NBA in assists (10.7 per game), averaged 21 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, and posted his highest three-point percentage (38.5%) since his rookie season.

That type of outing is why president of basketball operations Daryl Morey acquired Harden to pair with NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid at last season’s trade deadline. Harden can help push this version of the Sixers further in the postseason than they have ever gone — with the chance to clinch their first Eastern Conference finals appearance since 2001 with a Game 6 victory Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center — and perhaps vanquish some of his personal playoff demons along the way.

“James was a magician [Tuesday night],” Rivers said after the game. " … He was aggressive early on when he needed to be aggressive, and then he kind of sat back and played and got everybody else involved.”

Perhaps Harden’s greatest strength — even as injury and age have diminished his explosiveness and finishing — is his ability to read and manipulate a defense. Five games into this series, he and the Sixers have seen a multitude of strategies while facing a Boston team that ranked second in defensive efficiency (110.6 points allowed per 100 possessions) during the regular season. Switching on screens. Big men in a deep drop, or a closer drop.

Tuesday night, Harden and Embiid (who totaled 33 points, seven rebounds, three assists and four blocks) recognized the Celtics chose to clog the paint. So they repeatedly went to a lethal pick-and-roll combination, yielding pocket passes from Harden to Embiid for free-throw jumpers. The possessions when Boston attempted to deny Harden the ball, meanwhile, unlocked opportunities for dynamic guard Tyrese Maxey, who broke out of a season-long shooting rut against this particular opponent with 30 points on 6-for-12 from beyond the arc.

“They played us a little different,” Harden said after the game. “Each game, each possession is going to be different. You’ve got to adapt. You’ve got to adjust to it. … It’s a matter of us just us seeing what they’re trying to do, and us countering.”

Rivers reiterated during Wednesday’s film session that Harden getting downhill with the ball results in him “dragging people with him.” With proper spacing from teammates, Harden can facilitate to Embiid or to shooters in the corners, even when the Celtics’ defenders “just come from everywhere.” Rivers also called Tuesday the Sixers’ best cutting game when Embiid popped instead of rolled following a screen.

Harden still took brief opportunities to more deliberately look for his shot Tuesday, beginning the second quarter with a three-pointer and a step-back jumper that put the Sixers up 12. He made four of his six attempts before halftime. He then only took two shots following the break, but recorded six of his assists during that time as his team built on its double-digit advantage.

“That’s what we need from him,” Rivers said. “His pace, his trust, it’s just been really good. And when he does that, we’re a better basketball team.”

Harden has also been praised for his demeanor throughout this series. Maxey described a moment during Tuesday’s game when Harden got “really irritated” with him for giving the ball up early on a couple possessions, rather than capitalizing on the open looks when the defense focused on Harden and Embiid. After his Game 1 heroics without Embiid on the floor, Harden stressed that the Sixers had not yet accomplished anything. That remains the case even with a 3-2 series lead, as evidenced by the stoic faces that walked off the TD Garden floor and “normal” plane ride back to Philly with no celebration, Rivers described.

Those are all examples, Harden said, of these Sixers understanding who they are as a team — and how their star ballhandler fits into this version attempting to finally clear that second-round hurdle. After the dramatic personal-performance shifts during this series’ first four games, Tuesday’s Game 5 victory could go down as pivotal because it’s when Harden found a perfect balance.

“Whether that’s me scoring the basketball, or whether that’s me facilitating, or whether that’s me doing a little bit of both,” Harden said. " … [Tuesday] was a prime example of that.”