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James Harden's Decision After Clippers Game 7 Loss Catches Attention

When it comes to his penchant for massively disappointing performances in the playoffs, one thing we can at least say about Clippers point guard James Harden is that he is always there to face the music when it's over, to answer all the questions and fully explain himself.

Ah, kidding, of course.

Harden does not do any of those things, and repeated that on Saturday after a disaster of a Game 7 in Denver, one in which he shot 2-for-7 from the field and tallied an anemic seven points. The Clippers lost, 120-101, a game that was not nearly as close as that.

Harden met with the media after wins in the series against the Nuggets. But in losses in Games 4, 5 and 7, he did not.

As beat writer Brad Turner wrote in the L.A. Times, "Harden didn’t talk after the game, just like he didn’t talk after losses in Game 4 and 5."

At this point, given his woeful NBA playoff history (his scoring drops from 24.1 to 22.5 points from regular season to the playoffs, and his effective field-goal shooting crashes from 52.5% to 50.4%), none are surprised by the things Harden gets up to in the NBA in May.

Fans were disappointed in his unwillingness to talk postgame nonetheless.

"but couldn’t wait to talk after he played well last game smh. Ngl he fooled me this year, I thought he was gonna go harder these playoffs," one fan wrote on Twitter/X.

"Why don’t they make him talk just like they do everybody else," another wondered. (Side note: He will probably be fined.)

"Weak stuff man," another commented.

And another: "Can’t ever own up to his losses man get this man off the (expletive) team."

Yet another: "Such a petty behaviour. He's already very bad for the team, for the ball movement, for the toughness of the team, bad for Kawhi also, now he's bad after the game too. I'm not even a hater. We're in 2025, not 2018. He can't be a "star" for a team who want to win. He's a weakness."

As for Leonard, who was not terrific, either, with 22 points on 6-for-13 shooting, he did have the gumption to go to the podium. He acknolwedged that the effort was not what it shoulod have been.

“I think we could have given a better effort, for sure,” said Leonard, who had 22 points. “At the time, I don’t think this team is 30-points better than us, as you seen throughout the first six games of this series. But got to give them credit. They came out and fought, ran hard in transition, got easy points and they made shots.”

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