As great a player as James Harden is, an infamous tag has followed him throughout his career – The Choker. That’s because of his 9-15 record in elimination games heading into Thursday’s Nuggets clash. Many feared he would fail to perform on the big stage once again. But The Beard’s dominant 28-point scoring outburst to save the Clippers’ season put an end to that narrative.

Now, the LA team wants him to repeat the same feat tonight and put this series to bed. Looks like Harden will be there to answer the call, as he is not listed on the Clippers’ latest injury report. That means the former MVP is highly likely to suit up for the highly anticipated Game 7.

Well, there were concerns about James’ availability after he logged a team-high 47 minutes during Thursday’s game. That’s a lot of minutes for any player, let alone a 35-year-old. Harden even addressed the fatigue after the big win: “Tired. Tired, a little bit.” Moreover, he has played over forty minutes thrice in this series, putting his endurance to the test.

Turns out, he is even willing to log in 40+ minutes once again if it helps the Clippers advance to the next round. “Have to, have to. Whatever the team needs, 47, 48, overtime, whatever, I’ll be willing to do it,” Harden said after Thursday’s encounter. But it’s great to see that the high usage has not affected his health. And fortunately, he will get complete support from his teammates as the Clippers have a clean injury report heading into the game.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets will also enter the clash relatively healthy as they have only one player on their injury report—DaRon Holmes II, dealing with an Achilles injury. However, that should have no effect on their strategy as DaRon has been out for a long time and was not a part of the Nuggets’ rotation. So, it’s promising to be an epic battle with both teams healthy. And Ty Lue is counting on Harden to come through once again after what he did on Thursday.

Ty Lue “impressed” by James Harden’s performance as he reveals Clippers’ Game 6 strategy

Before Thursday, Harden was having a rather quiet series. Following his 32-point performance in Game 1, he had constantly failed to cross the 20-point mark. He played his worst game of the series on Tuesday, where he had just eleven points. So, what changed in Game 6? Turns out, Ty Lue’s strategy to go with a small-ball lineup helped unleash the former MVP.

“I wanted to get to the small lineup against their second unit. I thought we were able to push the pace, get open shots, get to the paint, kind of spread ’em out a little bit so they couldn’t just load up and try to take away driving lanes. Going to that and seeing how good it was just to kind of space the floor was really huge for us,” Lue said after Thursday’s win. Thanks to his strategy, Harden dropped 17 points in the second quarter, which helped the Clippers gain a massive edge.

Moreover, it showed Ty that Harden was ready to log in 47 minutes to help his team win. “Very impressed. He wants to play every night. He’s in great shape, trained for these moments. He wants to play… He got worn down, got a little tired. Took a couple of timeouts to try to save him. But he wanted to play, he wanted to compete, and he brought us home tonight,” Ty said.

The head coach is expecting the same level of dedication and sacrifice from the superstar tonight as the Clippers face a ‘win or go home’ situation. Do you think Harden can come through one more time and improve his elimination game record to 11-15?