On Sunday evening, the Cleveland Cavs fell behind 0-1 in their second round playoff series against the Detroit Pistons, dropping Game 1 by a score of 111-101. It was a tough game for James Harden, who scored 22 points but shot just 6-15 from the field and recorded seven turnovers in the loss.
It was not the first rough performance from Harden in these playoffs, and recently, ESPN sports media personality Stephen A. Smith took to “First Take” to put the future Hall of Famer on blast.
“For somebody as great as James Harden, that is just inexcusable, it is inexplicable. There is no way around it,” said Smith, per First Take on X, formerly Twitter.
Harden has been known as a playoff dropper throughout his career, laying eggs in several huge postseason moments dating back to his days as a member of the Houston Rockets. This caused some to have pause when the Cavs traded for him, seemingly in the hopes of improving their odds of postseason success, which many saw as counterintuitive.
While Harden undoubtedly gives the Cavs more experience and offensive versatility than what they had with Darius Garland, he still hasn’t exactly been able to shake off his playoff reputation so far in this postseason, turning in multiple clunkers in Cleveland’s seven-game war with the Toronto Raptors in the first round, and starting off on a bad foot in Game 1 in the Detroit series.
Donovan Mitchell has also played below expectations in these playoffs, shooting just 9-19 on Tuesday night after a hot start to the game. Overall, Cleveland will need to get more production out of its two stars in order to climb back against a Detroit team that has now won four straight games after a rough start of their own to the playoffs.
Game 2 is set for Thursday evening.