James Harden responded, but the Clippers need to be better to win Game 7

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INGLEWOOD, Calif. — James Harden began this Western Conference first-round series against the Denver Nuggets with a game-high 32 points on 11-of-22 shooting in a losing effort. Since that point, the LA Clippers All-Star’s attempts have declined:

• 18 points on 7-of-17 shooting in a Game 2 win
• 20 points (all by halftime) on 6-of-14 shooting in a Game 3 win
• 15 points on 5-of-11 shooting in a Game 4 loss
• 11 points on 3-of-9 shooting in a Game 5 loss

In the previous five games that Harden’s teams faced elimination, he averaged 14.6 field goal attempts per game. But in Game 6 Thursday, Harden was determined to put forth an effort that would prolong the season.

Harden had 17 of his game-high 28 points in the second quarter of Game 6 at Intuit Dome, and the Clippers held on to beat the Nuggets 111-105 to tie the best-of-seven series for the third time and force that winner-take-all Game 7 on Saturday at Ball Arena in Denver. The win broke a five-game personal losing streak for Harden in games where his team faced elimination; the last time he won a game facing elimination was in the 2020 bubble with the Houston Rockets against the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he clinched a Game 7 win by blocking Lu Dort’s 3-point attempt in the final seconds.

“It’s win or go home,” Harden said when The Athletic asked him about not letting his team’s season end. “We still had some mistakes tonight, but I think our energy defensively and offensively, our aggressiveness was different, which starts with me. Watching film, getting better, figure out things I can get better at, and do it one more game.”

When most think of effort in basketball, it’s on things such as defense and rebounding. But there’s also effort on offense, and for stars like Harden, you know he’s determined when he is playing fast and getting to the paint.

There was one play early in the second quarter where Harden’s effort on both ends of the floor shone. Denver point guard Jamal Murray was running a fast break after a missed 3 by Derrick Jones Jr., one of 18 missed 3-point attempts by the Clippers in the first half out of 22 attempts overall from deep. As Murray looked to pass the ball to shooting guard Christian Braun on the wing, Harden jumped into Murray’s line of vision, forcing a wayward delivery that was behind Braun and stolen by Clippers reserve Bogdan Bogdanović. Harden wanted the ball to start his own fast break, and four dribbles later, he was at the rim and finishing over Nuggets backup center DeAndre Jordan. Overall, Harden attempted six shots in the paint in the first half of Game 6, making five.

It was the needed response from Harden, who hadn’t spoken with the media after the previous two Clippers games, both Nuggets wins in which Denver took 22-point leads. Harden left it all out on the floor in Game 6, playing a game-high 46 minutes, including full 12-minute shifts in each of the last three quarters. It’s the third time Harden has cleared 40 minutes in this series, after a regular season in which Harden cleared 40 minutes five times at age 35.

“Very impressed,” said Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue of Harden’s ability to play so many minutes, even at this stage of Harden’s 16-year NBA career. “He wants to play every night. He’s in great shape, trained for these moments. He wants to play. I knew with the lineup that I wanted to get out there in the second quarter, he would get a quick breather. Kawhi (Leonard) came back in for him, and then we brought James back to start the second quarter to really give us some offensive firepower. And it worked. He got worn down, got a little tired. Took a couple of timeouts to try to save him. But he wanted to play, he wanted to compete, and he brought us home tonight.”

The Clippers jacked the advantage to double digits in the third quarter after leading 58-57 at halftime and peaked at 15 after Bogdanović nailed a 3-pointer assisted by Nicolas Batum with 5:57 left in the fourth quarter. But as Lue mentioned, Harden got tired. He played the entire second half, and thankfully for him and the Clippers, LA’s shooting came around after halftime.

Harden only scored seven points on 3-of-10 shooting in the second half. The Clippers made 8 of 17 3s in the second half of Game 6, a half that did not include starter Kris Dunn, who was replaced by Batum in an adjustment from Lue intended to give Harden and Leonard more space. Backup center Ben Simmons did not play at all, while LA was outscored by three points in starting center Ivica Zubac’s 33 minutes. The Clippers outscored the Nuggets by nine points in the 15 minutes that Zubac sat.

That was enough for the Clippers to hold onto Game 6, but they have to be so much better to win this series Saturday. David Guthrie’s crew basically swallowed their whistles at Intuit Dome, which benefited the Clippers, as they outscored the Nuggets 13-6 from the free-throw line in a game decided by six points. Denver’s nine free-throw attempts were a season low and seven fewer than its previous low for the series. Interim head coach David Adelman hinted that he knows his team, featuring MVP finalist Nikola Jokić, will get more calls at home.

“Nikola gets fouled a lot,” Adelman said after Jokić attempted only two free throws at Intuit Dome, his fewest of the series. “I’m not sure what was happening tonight, but for him to shoot two free throws with the amount of contact that was going on out there was absolutely crazy. They put smalls on him; those smalls were allowed to do whatever they want. So I’m really excited for Saturday, that we’re going to do the same thing with their best players. Because if that’s the physicality that we’re allowed to play with, we’ll react to it, and we will go there in Game 7.”

That is a warning for Harden, in particular, who didn’t shoot any free throws outside of his tone-setting second quarter and was the oldest of the five players who cleared 40 minutes in Game 6. The last time Harden played consecutive 40-minute games in the postseason was last year at Dallas, where he used the floater at will to score 33 points on 12-of-17 shooting from the field in a Game 4 series-tying win that would be the last victory with Paul George on the team. Harden found a way to score 39 points in 48 minutes in LA’s regular-season finale at Golden State, an overtime win that came after playing 42 minutes in Sacramento two nights earlier.

Harden knows that he’s going to be needed in similar ways in Game 7. But one of the areas the Clippers have to be better at remains getting back on defense and rebounding. They can’t have instances like when Russell Westbrook misses shots at the rim, only for his teammates to put the ball in the basket.

“Just gotta go do it,” Harden said when asked about starting Game 7 strong despite the altitude and what’s at stake. “Adding shooting out there helps us offensively. And then defensively … I think we watched film before the game, and we gave up in that first half, I think, like 30-some points just off things that we can control. You know what I mean? So if we correct those things, then we give ourselves a chance.”

This will be Harden’s first Game 7 since his last game with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2023. It will be Leonard’s first since June 2021 against the Dallas Mavericks, the last playoff series he completed healthy. Lue is 4-0 in Game 7s, and this one will be played on his 48th birthday. Each team has won a game in which they forced 20 turnovers. Each team has blown the other out with outlier shooting. And now, each team won a clutch-time game after leading by double digits.

All that’s left is to see who gets a resting Thunder team next week. Harden is going to be ready to max out his effort to ensure that his team has another flight in them.

“It is what it is,” Harden said while yawning at the news conference table. “Whatever the team needs: 47, 48, overtime, whatever. I’m willing to do it.”

(Photo: Harry How / Getty Images)

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