Miami Heat Playoffs: Tyrese Maxey Helps, But It Won’t Be Enough For Harden.
Here’s how Maxey’s success against Miami this season plays into things. The Miami Heat can throw the scheme at Maxey to take him completely out of the game, while they can go with a classic man-switch on James Harden with the ancillary defenders.
They could elect to run some form of Trae Young treatment on whichever of the two seems to have it going on a given night, in a given moment, or some form where they both see it in general.
Who knows? The point of it all is this though.
With only those two and so heavily relying on the perimeter to paint drive that requires space, not necessarily creating it like a Joel Embiid or classic three-point shooting does for a team, the Miami Heat can find a way to take, at least, one of them out of the game while sustaining a good effort on the other.
Now, could Harden decide to come out and look like his old self? He could.
Don’t bet your money on it though. Because not only has he not shown you that he still has that in his game, the Miami Heat won’t make it easy for him to show it.