Can Harden redeem himself in Game 2 vs Knicks?

I said this was his moment. I did not say he was ready for it.

Down 22 points with eight minutes left in Game 1, the Cavaliers had the Knicks exactly where every team wants an opponent in a conference finals game. The Garden was quiet. Jalen Brunson was struggling. Nine days of rust had turned New York’s offense into something that looked like a team running plays they half-remembered from a dream. Cleveland was cruising.

And then Mike Brown looked at his clipboard, looked at the matchup, and said two words that changed the entire series:

Attack Harden.

What happened next was not basketball; it was the eviscerating of a bearded gladiator in front of New York. Brunson went straight at James Harden in the fourth quarter and did not stop, hitting five straight field goals, scoring 16 of his 38 points in the final period alone. Brunson finished the game shooting 7-of-11 when guarded by Harden, compared to 8-of-18 against everyone else. The man was literally more efficient with Harden on him!!

Harden shot 1-of-6 from the field in the fourth quarter and missed all three of his three-point attempts. The Cavaliers, a team that held a 99.9 percent win probability with 7:49 remaining, suddenly looked like they were trying to finish a marathon on legs that had already crossed the finish line. They shot 29.4 percent from the field in the fourth quarter, missed six of their final seven shots in overtime, and watched one of the safest leads in modern playoff history evaporate possession by possession.

The collapse didn’t happen all at once. It happened the way these things usually do. One defensive breakdown. One switch too many. One possession where tired legs arrive half a second late. Then another. Then another.

By the time the Knicks completed the comeback, Harden had become the center of every important possession on the floor whether Cleveland wanted him there or not.

I’m not burying Harden after one game. The series is 1-0, not 4-0. Cleveland still has Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley, and one of the league’s best defenses. New York needed an all-time comeback just to steal home court advantage. There are plenty of worlds where the Cavaliers respond in Game 2 and this series becomes the heavyweight fight everyone expected.

The Knicks found something though, folks. They didn’t spend months developing a secret playoff strategy or unveil some revolutionary offensive concept. They simply discovered that when the game got tight, Brunson could force Cleveland into a matchup it didn’t want and keep returning to it until the Cavaliers proved they could stop it.

Now Kenny Atkinson has an uncomfortable problem on his hands. What Game 1 revealed is that New York believes the cost of having him on the floor may now be higher than the damage he creates offensively when the pressure reaches its highest point.

That’s a brutal question for any contender to face in late May, and it’s the question waiting for Cleveland when the ball goes up tonight.

For years the conversation around Harden was whether he would ever get another opportunity like this. Whether the right roster, the right coach, and the right circumstances would finally align around one of the greatest offensive players of his generation.

The opportunity arrived.

Now the Knicks are trying to make sure it leaves just as quickly.