James Harden, Sixers react to flagrant foul late in home loss to Raptors
PHILADELPHIA–The Philadelphia 76ers had a chance late at home against the rival Toronto Raptors. After two missed free throws by rookie Scottie Barnes, the Sixers were down 90-88 with 7.2 seconds left. At that point, it was time for James Harden to prove why Philadelphia went out and acquired him.
It seemed like a prime moment for him to step up and come through for his new team, but when he drove the paint, he was called for an offensive foul which was then turned into a flagrant-1 foul. The Raptors took advantage and they went on to win 93-88.
It was a fitting end to a night where the Sixers saw a 16-point lead in the first half evaporate rather quickly and they only scored 51 points in the final three quarters after scoring 37 in the opening 12 minutes. Harden finished with 17 points, nine rebounds, and eight assists, but he also had six turnovers on the night.
James Harden reacts
“They said it was obvious, but you know me. I don’t know another way to go up. It is what is, but for me personally, I gotta play better. As far as the turnovers, some of them were careless. Just helping rebounding, just small things that I can control, I gotta do a better job with that and I will going forward, but just a weird game all in all. It started off really good and then it just boggled down for whatever reason so I think we gotta just do a really good job of trying to sustain our pace for 48 minutes.”
thoughts? pic.twitter.com/Y8chlbMuIC
— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) March 21, 2022
Doc Rivers
“I thought it was an offensive foul. They (the Raptors) sold out and came to try and get the ball out of his hands so give them credit. It’s a tough one because James has to, you gotta go up with it, so it wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other unless they had called a foul.”
“I think his elbow—I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I could only see from looking up at the screen so I thought I saw his elbow hit his face. I don’t think it was intentional, I don’t know, but I guess that’s the rule. If a elbow hits the face, then it’s an automatic flagrant. I’m not really caught up on the rules on that so I can’t really speak too much on it.”
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