The Month Stretch That James Harden was UNSTOPABLE

James Harden is undoubtedly one of the best scores in NBA history a three-time scoring champion 10 time Allstar and MVP he will go down in the history books as one of the best Shooters and scorers of all time today I want to revisit the peak of his career his 2018 2019 season gave us some iconic moments but one month in particular he went out and scorched the league night in and night out let's explore James Harden's historic January 2019 where he averaged over 43 points per game Harden has always been known as a scorer and after being traded to the Houston Rockets in 2012 he was given the keys to the team where he was able to evolve into a prolific score in his final season in OKC he won the Sixth Man of the Year award averaging 16.8 points per game his game in Houston reached a new level with his first season he boosted his numbers up to nearly 26 points per game and his time in Houston would reflect his scoring ability as his lowest points per game in Houston for a full season was 25.4 way over what he was averaging in Oklahoma City maybe he just needed the opportunity and now he got it over time as his scoring increased he became a better player the Rockets also got back into becoming a contender the biggest change to Harden's game would come in in a coaching change in 2016 with the hiring of Mike dantony when he was hired the Rockets were expected to become a better team but I don't think anyone expected Harden's game to expand as much as it did the duo clearly worked together well as in their first season he won the coach of the year award and the rockets made it to the Western Conference Finals while Harden averaged a career-high in points the next two seasons he would continue to become a better player as the team continue to get better Harden would win MVP in the 2017 2018 season averaging 30.4 points per game but this wouldn't be his scoring Prime that would actually come in the next season going into the 2018 2019 season the rockets and James Harden had high expectations coming off of an MVP and a franchise best record of 65 wins to 17 losses there wasn't much room for failure the season started well but this is where Harden would reach his Peak scoring thanks to one word isolation Harden found his game within his ISO play and dant Tony is credited with helping this let's take a look at isolation play scoring leaders from the 2018 2019 season starting in the fifth position we have Kawhi Leonard at 3.9 points per game Demar D roen comes in at Fourth at 4.1 points per game LeBron James coming in at third one of the best isolation scores hard to guard him one-on-one this was close to his prime two right after his 2018 season at 4.7 points James Harden's teammate Chris Paul 4.7 points and then number one James Harden 18.1 points per game which was over half of his total on the season of 36.1 points per game he was doing this in isolation play he was averaging over 18 points per game by him himself one onone and it was impossible to guard him that is over four times more than Chris Paul who was in second place in the season this absolutely revolutionized his game and it helped him absolutely Scorch the league especially from three shooting very well from downtown and he was able to hit that step back three during this time period it was almost automatic if he hit that step back three on you you knew that was going to be a bucket now let's look at his stats from January 2019 as a whole because one of his best games in his career also came during this time period now looking at a number standpoint James Harden's January of 2019 may be the best stretch of offensive basketball that we have ever seen overall he averaged 43.6 points per game 8.7 rebounds per game and 7.6 assists per game and if we break it down down by the Numbers this includes 5 40o games two 50-point games and one 60-point game which we'll get into in a minute and he had zero games below 30 points this is insane we're talking about a whole month stretch of basketball where you play a game almost every day sometimes back-to-back games and he did not have a game where he had less than 30 points during this time period which is just insane to say out loud now how did he do this just besides the isolation play itself yes he was very very good this season able to get almost any shot that he wanted up in the game now a specific game that I want to bring it to is his 61o performance which tied a career high against the New York Knicks in January 24th of 2019 now this game highlights his scoring prowess during this point in his career but the main thing I want to point out about this game is another reason how he scored so many points which is the free throw line during this game he went 17 for 38 from the field not the best especially looking at this game having 61 points you got to wonder where do those other 22 points come from 5 for 20 from three so not great but 22 for 25 from the the free throw line he also had 15 rebounds four assists and five steals in this game just an insane game to look at from a scoring and offensive standpoint by itself but this is how he got a bunch of the points during this time period if he wasn't hitting that step back three he was getting to the free throw line and he did draw some criticism during this time period because a lot of people got to a point where they got sick of him drawing so many fouls which as we know now in the current NBA landscape we have a lot of higher up players doing that and people still get pretty upset about it but during this time period if you couldn't guard that step back he was getting fouled on those three-point attempts so often and he was going to the line and that's what led to him getting 61 points in this game in a four-point win against the Knicks Harden also had two very historic stretches during this time period throughout this season as some of them include anuary some either started before January or ended after and these two stretches are a 32 game streak of scoring at least 30 points this started in December 13th and went all the way to February 21st this is just absolutely insane to look at he also had a record 42.8 points over a stretch from December 15th to January 23rd which is also just crazy to look at Will Chamberlain is the only other player in NBA history to average more points in a 20 game stretch than Harden did in that 5we period And if you are being compared to Wilt Chamberlain who put up like video game 2K numbers from what we know in the record books you're doing something pretty well and he was also very efficient during this time because during this stretch he went and he went out there fast like I said ISO play as well he went out there hit those step backs when he needed to got to the rim or got fouled almost every possession that he went out there and he shot 53.9% from the field which is also insane over a 15 game stretch which is how he got so many points a total of 856 over that time period averaging 42.8 so from a number standpoint is this the best scoring out that we have seen within a single month or a single time period in NBA history yes it's definitely up there like I said it's up there with the likes of Wilt Chamberlain's time period when he was putting up 50 points in a season but the main thing to look at from this time period you can look at the stats all you want but just watching this back going back and watching those Prime James Harden highlights from the Rockets he was unguardable and he went out there almost every single single night during this time period and put up buckets like I said before during a time period in January of 2019 you could go out there and if you bet on Harden to have at least 30 points throughout that whole month there was not a single game where he went under that and would have lost you that bet just to put that into perspective let me know Down Below guys what you want to see me cover next if there's any other players that you want to see me go back and maybe cover their prime time period let me know down below and I'll see you guys in the next one