James Harden addresses officiating, struggles as Sixers fall to Celtics

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PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers had their chance. They had a chance to eliminate the Boston Celtics in Game 6 at home, but they were not able to finish them off in a 95-86 loss. They outscored the Cs 30-21 in the third quarter to give themselves a chance, but they only scored 13 in the fourth.

The Sixers shot just 36.1% on the night, they only had 18 assists, and they shot only 8-for-34 from deep.

James Harden, who has had some really huge games and some really bad games in this series, had only 13 points on 4-for-16 shooting and he was 0-for-6 from deep. He did have nine assists and seven rebounds, but Philadelphia needed more out of him.

Harden was also just 5-for-5 at the free-throw line. He appeared to take a lot of hits, but he wasn’t able to get the calls he has gotten throughout his career.

“Tonight was just frustrating because I’m number one as far as fouls that don’t get called. It’s a fact,” said Harden after the loss. “So it’s frustrating as a player. So when officiating tells you at halftime ‘We missed a couple of fouls’. That right there. There was some missed shots and fouls which would give me a rhythm to transition points for them.”

On top of the shooting struggles, Harden did commit five turnovers despite having nine assists. He would have had more assists, but the Sixers had trouble knocking down good, open looks on the offensive end.

“I’m not gonna look at my shooting percentage,” Harden continued. “I did a lot of really good things offensively. Defensively, they did a really good job of like their game plan was to pack the paint. They started two bigs and they packed the paint. They started two bigs and they packed the paint. So they forced us to make shots.”

At this stage of his career, obviously, Harden is more of a playmaker than he is a scorer and he knows that. Thursday was just one of those games for him and the Sixers.

“It’s not a hard game,” finished Harden. “I’m not gonna force it and, obviously, I want to score the basketball, but I’m a playmaker as well. So I won’t look too much into scoring.”

Game 7 is back in Boston on Sunday.

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