The Brooklyn Big 3's debut leads to being down to Cavs 49-51 at halftime.
KD - 4-9 for 11 points
Kyrie - 8-10 for 17 points
Harden - 0-2 for 2 points
That's going to be the theme their entire tenure with one guy (ala Ray Allen) getting less touches and shots every night. We'll see how long Harden goes along with that.
Pretty laughable how their best on-ball engine is getting the least touches lol. But hey at least Kyrie is getting his 2.5 post ups per game!
This is the problem with Harden. His game is based on slowly lulling defenders to sleep and then exploding off the dribble but all that takes time on the ball and it denies his teammates from contributing to the offense while he does it. Partially due to his lack of athleticism and partially due to his insistence on high usage versus say a Ginobili-like usage which would allow him to be effective without hurting his teammates.
This is the issue with putting Harden next to other stars. He needs so much time on the ball that he doesn't assimilate to other offensive setups well. You can see this in All-Star games, in Team USA and in Houston next to both Dwight Howard and CP3.
This also makes him the most vulnerable to a downturn in performance when playing with other stars relative to Kyrie or Durant who can create their own shots in far less time and space than Harden is able to. So those guys are more consistent scorers / offensive creators regardless of situation to Harden.
Harden on the other hand needs to be catered to and in doing so will hurt many other types of offensive star players that play next to him.
Harden was always the one that was most likely to see a decrease in his production because of this. Because of his own style of play.