Clippers fans can’t get over James Harden foul-baiting at the end of the Sixers game on Monday night
I cannot stress this enough. I am thrilled that I no longer have to sit in my living room and try to decode whether James Harden was actually fouled or just performing one of his patented “fling my limbs into a defender and pretend physics no longer applies” routines.
Those days are over for Philadelphia, and watching the Clippers melt down over a missed Harden call last night was the most peaceful basketball experience I have had in years.
The Clippers lost 110 to 108 to the Sixers. Harden got two shots at a game winner and bricked both of them. Somewhere deep down, the Wells Fargo crowd knew this was exactly how it would end because we lived through it for long enough to be experts. If you have watched Harden in a close game, you know the script.
Step back. Flail. Wait for a whistle. Look betrayed. Miss anyway.
James Harden for the win (x2)
Clippers fans are furious today. They think Quentin Grimes fouled Harden on that first three. They think Harden landed in a restricted airspace. They think the league owes them a letter in the morning. They are posting slow motion Zapruder film breakdowns of elbow contact like it is a congressional hearing.
Meanwhile, Sixers fans are sitting here with a calm heart rate, thinking one simple thought. We have seen this movie before. We know the ending. It never changes.
You can dig up every angle if you would like. Harden very likely got touched on the elbow. Maybe it was a foul. Maybe it was not.
None of that changes the results. Harden still took two shots to win the game and he missed both. He did it in Houston. He did it in Brooklyn. He did it in Philadelphia. Now he is doing it in Los Angeles. The location changes. The story does not.
Did Quentin Grimes foul James Harden on his go-ahead 3-pointer? Does anyone care?
Was Quentin Grimes in James Harden’s Landing Space? Does Anyone Care?
The best part is that Philadelphia no longer has to live in that officiating debate vortex. No more postgame arguments about landing space. No more screengrabs of Harden leaning sideways like he is falling off a yacht.
No more league reports that read like hostage letters. The Sixers have Tyrese Maxey now and he shoots the ball because he wants to score, not because he wants a seminar on continuation rules.
Clippers fans say this is the season from hell for them and maybe it is. Injuries, blown leads, an ongoing league investigation, and now a nightly exercise in Harden endgame theater. There is real pain in that franchise.
This is not my problem anymore
Philadelphia is free. Free from the whistle hunting. Free from the slowed tempo. Free from the final two minutes turning into paperwork.
James Harden can debate physics in Los Angeles and we can debate whether or not Joel Embiid will ever return to greatness or if it’s time to give the franchise to Tyrese Maxey.
The Clippers want an apology from the officials. I want to thank the officials for sparing us from another week of Harden discourse. Everyone leaves happy.
Well, almost everyone.
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