James Harden and Chris Paul played together for two seasons, 2017-18 and 2018-19. The Houston Rockets climbed from #3 in 2017 to #1 in the Western Conference ranking the following year with a 79.3 win percent. That is how much this duo influenced the team.
But things turned nasty in 2019 when the Houston Rockets met the Golden State Warriors in the conference semi-finals. The Warriors won the series 4-2 and showed Rockets the way out. But for this duo, they lost more than just the game and the series.
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Chris Paul and James Harden simply parted ways
The former Rockets guard recently gave an interview where he revealed his current relations with The Beard.
He said, “I mean he ain’t gonna hit me and tell me to tell my daughter happy birthday today. We don’t talk or communicate nothin’ like that but that’s all going well. I wish him the best. I mean any and everything he does. That’s one thing people fail to realize sometimes in these situations. Sometimes you have teammates, it is for that period of time, but that’s OK.”
With the look on his face, one could tell that he has had enough of this question about the feud between the two. He concluded, “It doesn’t mean you have to be enemies. So, at the end of the day, everybody got a life to live.”
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Chris Paul very candid on where his relationship stands with James Harden leading up to the Thunder meeting the Rockets tonight on @NBAonTNT: “He’s not going to hit me to tell my daughter Happy Birthday today.” pic.twitter.com/MOalfyjDRE
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) August 18, 2020
But what exactly happened?
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In Game 6 of the 2019 Western conference semi-finals, James Harden and Chris Paul put up a great show. Harden scored 35 points, 8 rebounds, and 5 assists. Whereas, Chris added 27 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists. But an equally great performance from the Splash Brothers stopped them from tasting victory. Reportedly, CP3 and Harden got involved in a verbal exchange regarding ball distribution. This attracted a lot of hype from media later. Have a look at the highlights from that game-
Coming back to the present day, as the luck would have it, Harden’s Rockets are against CP3’s OKC in this post-season round 1. The opener game went to the Rockets 123-108. Harden scored 37 while Chris Paul managed 20 points and 10 rebounds. The two teams will next meet on August 20 at 3:30 PM ET (ESPN) in the NBA Playoffs 2020.