Getty James Harden took a hilarious jab at the Warriors following the Rockets win
Whether intentional or not, the Houston Rockets‘ James Harden had the highlight of the night with this quote.
While his performance in the Rockets’ 129-112 victory over the Golden State Warriors was impressive enough — 36 points, 13 assists, three steals and three blocks — it was his postgame quote that was the most flattering.
As everyone knows, the Rockets and Warriors are rivals. Despite the fact that Golden State emerged victorious in all four of the teams’ postseason meetings in recent years, most of the battles were closely contested.
However, just months after the Warriors last played the Rockets — a six-game series win in the semifinals in May of 2019 — Golden State looks nothing like the team that took the court just months prior.
That would be because Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Kevin Durant aren’t playing. In the case of Durant, it’s because he’s actually no longer a member of the Warriors — he signed with the Brooklyn Nets in the offseason.
Obviously, don’t tell that to Harden, who still thinks that Durant is coming back to play for the Warriors this season — as he stated in the postgame interview.
“Hopefully Klay, KD & Steph get back soon.” – Harden, masterfully trolling the Warriors
Was Harden Trolling the Warriors?
It’s hard to tell if this was intentional or not, but if it was intentional by any means, it’s hilarious. It at least adds some intrigue to a rivalry that is now largely dead due to the fact that the Warriors are battered and bruised.
Speaking of the Warriors being battered and bruised, they went with a starting lineup of Eric Paschall, Glenn Robinson III, Willie Cauley-Stein, Ky Bowman and Jordan Poole — all of whom were not members of the Warriors last season.
In fact, of the nine Warriors that appeared in the team’s loss to the Rockets on Wednesday night, only Damion Lee played for the team last season.
Despite the vast difference in personnel from their playoff rivalry over the years, Harden didn’t show any remorse for Golden State following the game — a loss that dropped them to 2-6, their worst start since the 2011-12 season.
“That’s a part of the league,” Harden said about the changing faces. “It’s a part of the NBA. There’s been a lot of different faces since I’ve been here. It was bound to happen at some point and it is what it is.”
Harden Makes NBA History To Start Season
Despite Harden’s rough start to the season — he’s converting on just 38.7 percent of his field goal attempts and 27.0 percent of his 3-point attempts this season — he made a little bit of NBA history following Wednesday’s beat down of the Warriors.
That would be because Harden now has 292 points through the first eight games of the season. That’s notable because no player over the past 30 seasons has scored that many points to start out a season.
The last player to score more points? None other than Michael Jordan when he scored 303 points during the 1988-89 season.
Warriors power forward Paschall spoke of the difficulty of guarding Harden, a former MVP and the league’s reigning scoring champion.
“It’s just hard because he’s so dynamic and he’s a great passer,” Paschall said. “And during his (isolation plays), you can’t really touch him because he’s so smart on how he draws the fouls. As a team, we did a good job in the first half, but then he got hot and started hitting 3s.”
The Rockets will look to extend their winning streak to three games when they take on the Chicago Bulls on Saturday night.