Houston Rockets guard James Harden is probable to play in Monday’s matchup with the Atlanta Hawks, despite dealing with discomfort from a cervical strain. He played through the pain against the Los Angeles Lakers last Thursday, but missed Saturday’s contest against the Golden State Warriors in order to rest and recover.
At Rockets shootaround on Monday morning, Harden told reporters exactly how the neck injury occurred, noting that lingering issues have been severe enough to negatively impact his quality of sleep.
Wednesday, in practice, I ran into one of my teammates off a screen … I wasn’t really able to move my neck, so it affected me (in) not just basketball, but in day-to-day life, walking around … It’s tough to just hold your head up. Even when you sleep, it’s kind of a lose-lose situation. If you’re up, you can’t really move your neck, and if you’re asleep, you can’t sleep the wrong way. So I’ve just been trying to sleep and try to hopefully knock the pain off, and hopefully the pain goes away. And it’s been doing that. I’ve been getting treatment nonstop.
Although the Rockets were able to defeat the Warriors without Harden, they need him to be healthy moving forward. With guard Iman Shumpert (knee) cleared to play, tonight’s matchup could be Houston’s first opportunity to take the court at full health this season.
