James Harden broke the old Houston Rockets franchise record set by Calvin Murphy in his 60 points win over Orlando Magic. The bearded one shines especially in the fourth quarter and does everything for the rockets. His teammates can’t help but be amazed.
“It was unbelievable,”Rockets legend Hakeem Olajuwon said after James Harden’s historic performance with 60 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists:”He made it look so easy,” but it wasn’t exactly like that. The beard seemed exhausted and had problems in the interview right after the game to make straight sentences.
Who can blame him? Against the Orlando Magic, the Rockets in Chris Paul, Eric Gordon and Trevor Ariza were missing three of the top six players to relieve Harden from scoring. Without this trio, even against the Magic they needed a real Harden creamy day and they got it.
“Indescribable,”said Ryan Anderson.”He did everything he could,” especially for the last 12 minutes of the game. Houston went into the final section against a rebellious Orlando with a 90:88 lead. But what came then was an absolute show. Of the 24 Rockets points, Harden made 18 (6/10 FG) and played another assist.
It was a unique energy performance that cannot be repeated so often and must not be repeatable. The last 16 points of Mike D’ Antoni’s squad were won by all the harders with some crazy throws, in which Orlando did a lot of things right, but then was powerless.
When Harden was fouled at the threesome and the throw was sunk, the often reserved audience exploded in the Toyota Center. Not only was it the dagger of the game, but the beard had at that moment set the old franchise record of Calvin Murphy of 57 points (March 1978 against the New Jersey Nets). With the following free-throw, he finally erased the name Murphy from the history books.
“It was a good feeling,”the man of the day said modestly,”If there were good things going on in the field and there was a good feeling for the game,” and there were a lot of good things going on, so Gerald Green was not badly surprised,”I’ve been playing in the NBA for a long time now, but I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
Green certainly wouldn’t have been alone. Coach Mike D’ Antoni also joined in with the praise hymns:”He didn’t have a favourite spot today, the whole field belonged to him” Green even added one more:”Damn, if James always plays like that, nobody will beat us”.