James Harden sledged by Charlotte Hornets broadcasters after ironic 'quadruple-double'
Sunday 8 March 2020 11:47, UK
James Harden was on the receiving end of some colourful sledging from the home broadcasters during the Houston Rockets' 108-99 defeat at the Charlotte Hornets.
In the absence on guard partner Russell Westbrook, Harden had 30 points, 10 rebounds and 14 assists for his 46th career triple-double and fourth this season, not a bad night's work you might think.
But he also had 10 of Houston's 21 turnovers and upon committing the last of these Charlotte broadcaster Eric Collins erupted with joy, exclaiming: "There it is, oh my goodness! Ten turnovers for James Harden - a quadruple-double!"
This is the third "dubious" quadruple-double – as Collins calls it – of the former MVP's career, per CBS Sports, with the other two both coming in 2017.
The first was in a 129-122 win over the Toronto Raptors (40 points, 11 assists, 10 rebounds and 10 turnovers), and the second happened in a 135-128 win over the Sacramento Kings (35 points, 15 assists, 11 rebounds and 10 turnovers). This means Saturday night's stat line of that ilk, was the first to come in a loss.
The Rockets have lost three straight after winning six straight and 10 of 12 and left themselves a huge uphill struggle on Saturday night, after allowing the Hornets to score the first 20 points of the game.
"I don't know," Houston coach Mike D'Antoni said about the slow start. "I've never experienced that before, 20-0 that's a big deficit to overcome and for whatever reason when we did attack we turned it over, it was kind of weird. And we couldn't stop them. Just a little bit of sluggishness, for whatever reason."
Harden added: "We have to do a better job defensively to make our offense a lot better. We didn't make enough shots. Obviously, down 20-0 is tough to come back on anybody but we did, to give ourselves a chance, but we just couldn't continue to sustain that kind of intensity throughout the four quarter game."
More worrying for Harden though, is his inefficiency from the field. The 2017-18 MVP entered Saturday shooting just 39.8 percent from the field and 30.8 percent from three since January 1 and he shot just 2-for-11 from beyond the arc in Charlotte.
Next up, Houston hosts Orlando on Sunday night.
