It was perhaps the best crossover of the current NBA season: in the Houston Rockets’ game against the L. A. Clippers sent James Harden’s opponent on the boards with a crazy move.
When Johnson was lying on the floor, Harden took a short break. He even briefly took his throwing hand off the ball and stared at Johnson, who was several meters away from him. Then he met the next threesome.
“I just wanted to find out what he was doing,”Harden later explained with a grin,”I wanted to throw, but I waited because I wanted to see it. I was confused. I thought, did the Refs blow the whistle?”
Harden’s teammate Eric Gordon could only marvel at the move that put Houston in the lead of 31:7 at the time,”It was great,”says Gordon.”That was just crazy, of course. You don’t see that often. I was definitely laughing. Everybody’s gonna talk about it for a while.”
The rockets are still running like clockwork. Houston went 14th against the Clippers. Victory in a row and is still number 1 in the Western Conference.