James Harden battling a right hand strain, sits out game vs. Warriors
SAN FRANCISCO — James Harden’s hamstring woes are a thing of the past, but it’s the right hand that’s now bothering the lefty Nets star.
The Nets updated Harden’s status to questionable 90 minutes before tipoff then listed him as out against the Golden State Warriors with a right hand strain on Saturday. Nets head coach Steve Nash said Harden’s right hand has been bothering him for “a few days at least” and that it really flared up Saturday morning when he woke up.
“What he was feeling yesterday and this morning, he woke up with some irritation so he had a (MRI) scan,” Nash said ahead of tipoff. “Just unfortunate and he’s, I believe he’s a game-time decision, so they’re just going to continue to analyze and monitor and see if he can go.”
Nash said the MRI showed that Harden avoided significant damage to his hand, but also said the scan wasn’t necessarily clean.
“There’s stuff on the MRI,” Nash said. “So he’s feeling something and feeling the strain and, like I said, it’s been bothering him, but I think (at first) he was like, ‘It’s nothing,’ and now it’s a little more than nothing. He woke up with a marked difference in the hand.”
Harden’s hand has been an issue for a few days, Nash said, but became more significant on Friday, after he went through shooting drills and lifting exercises in practice.
“He doesn’t remember an event, but the scan shows the irritation, the strain and he’s said he’s had it for a number of days,” said Nash. “So I think the deduction would be that he irritated it shooting and lifting it yesterday.”
Luckily for the Nets, if Harden can’t go, one of the team’s other stars can.
Kyrie Irving has not played in the Nets’ last two games at home due to New York City’s vaccine mandate but is available for the team’s five-game road trip. This is exactly the kind of stretch the team needed to reincorporate Irving back into the rotation for: To lessen the burden placed on Harden’s shoulders to carry the offense.
Irving has only appeared in seven games since the organization’s decision to welcome him back to the team in mid-December. He is averaging 23.4 points and five assists on 50% shooting from the field and 100% shooting from the foul line.
“It’s been great having him back,” Nash said. “We’ve had so many injuries and interruptions this year, availability issues, that to have a player of his caliber, even if it’s just on the road, has been much needed and great for our group.
“The reality of the last 18 months for us is that we’ve never had an extended run of health. So to have a player that plays on the road and not at home is not that different from what we face anyway. So it hasn’t been as strange for our group, it hasn’t been strange at all in some weird way. It actually feels normal because we’ve had so many interruptions and injuries.”
