CHOKE CITY: HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM

The Houston Rockets were in a great spot last night to extend their series to seven games. They were playing at home, had one of the top MVP candidates, and Kawhi Leonard would miss the game due to a sprained ankle. There's just no way the Spurs could go into the Toyota Center and end this series without a couple of their key players, right? WRONG! The Spurs absolutely put on a clinic and ran the Rockets out the gym. The final score was 114-75, a 39 point blow out led by LaMarcus Aldridge who had 34 points and 12 rebounds. Even with Aldridge playing a great game the main concern afterwards was the disappearing act performed by James Harden.

I'll be the first person to tell you that I had Harden in the superstar category coming into this season. I have now changed my stance on this after his pathetic display last night. It isn't Harden's first time having a disastrous game while facing elimination, but game 6 was on a different level. As far as I'm concerned Harden didn't even try. There was no reason why Harden should've only had two field goal attempts, five points, and five turnovers at halftime. His final stat line was 10 points on 2-11 shooting, 3 rebounds, 7 assists and 6 turnovers.

In the league today we have all star caliber players, star players, and superstar players (LeBron, Curry, Durant, Westbrook, Leonard). Harden is just a star player, nothing more nothing less. You cannot continue to have these tragic performances when your team needs you the most and be considered a superstar. I can go back to the 2012 NBA finals when Harden gave the Thunder absolutely nothing on the offensive end. Let's flashback to 2015 when Harden set a playoff record with 13 turnovers against Golden State in an elimination game. He was also 2-11 shooting as well. Some people say Westbrook shot the Thunder out of game 6 last round, but at least he went out shooting and putting up a fight! Harden finished with 11 shot attempts for the game when he should've had that amount of attempts in the first quarter.

Harden is starting to be remembered for more bad than good when it comes to the NBA playoffs. His performance last night was the icing on the cake. I thought I was watching Tony from the movie "Blue Chips." For those that don't understand the comparison I definitely recommend watching that film for yourself. It's going to be a long offseason for Harden and the Rockets after what was a successful regular season.