Rockets guard James Harden is not listed on the injury report and will therefore be available for Houston’s Tuesday night game against the Atlanta Hawks.
Harden was listed as questionable for Sunday night’s game against the Minnesota Timberwolves due to a cervical strain. He played, but it’s clearly impacted his play as of late. Harden had a career true shooting percentage of 60.9%, but is shooting 53.6% in the month of March.
“He just got hit last game on the drive and re-aggravated (the cervical strain),” head coach Mike D’Antoni said before the game Sunday.
Harden missed a game against the Golden State Warriors in late February with the strain. He got on February 9th against the Oklahoma City Thunder when he got tangled up with center Steven Adams. “I just got caught up with (Steven) Adams,” Harden said at the time. “He’s a pretty strong guy.”
Mike D’Antoni noted after Sunday’s game that Houston will likely take a lot of precautions down the stretch of the season to insure they go into the playoffs at full-health, but Harden is famous for refusing to sit out games.
Mike D’Antoni on Kenneth Faried and Austin Rivers not playing tonight:
“With everybody healthy and everybody back, we just got to systematically rest some people,” said D’Antoni. “Not that they needed rest per say, but to help the rotation and give guys enough minutes to be able to at least play.”
