Everywhere James Harden tried to go, there was Christian Braun in his way. For that, thank the personal scouting report offered up from Harden's former teammate and Denver Nuggets sixth man Russell Westbrook. He passed along plenty of useful tips to Braun about guarding the Los Angeles Clippers' star.
Closely covered by Braun all night, Harden was just 2-of-8 from the floor and scored seven points in the Clippers' season-ending 120-101 loss to the Nuggets on Saturday in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series.
Harden has lost a Game 7 with four different teams: the Houston Rockets (2018), Brooklyn Nets (2021), Philadelphia 76ers (2023) and now the Clippers. In those four losses, Harden has averaged 17.5 points per game while shooting 33.8% (22-of-65) from the floor.
His teams have gone 3-4 in Game 7s throughout his career.
This year's matchup with the Nuggets was a sporadic shooting series for Harden all around as he shot 43.6%. After going off for 32 points in Game 1, he averaged just 16.5 points per game the rest of the series.
"James is a tough cover," said Westbrook, who was teammates with Harden last season. "Christian did a good job trying to make the game difficult on him. I thought he did an excellent job and he has been doing that all year."
Braun deflected the credit. He said he was able to play tighter defense on Harden because of players such as Aaron Gordon behind him. They were there waiting, just in case Harden broke away.
"I couldn’t pick him up and pressure him all game if I didn’t have the guys behind me that were flying around," Braun said.
Braun listened intently to the words of wisdom from Westbrook.
"He’s played against James. He’s played with James, so he kind of knows his game," Braun said.
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