Harden reveals what everyone already knew, he was a lot more hurt than Nets let on

James Harden was essentially playing on one leg in Games 5,6, and 7, but he gave it his al nonetheless. Following the Game 7 loss, Harden told reporters that he had a Grade 2 hamstring strain with a normal recovery time of 4-6 weeks. Harden took barely a fraction of that time to heal the injury before charging back to provide a lift in Game 5 despite not scoring a single point.

With each subsequent game, Harden looked to be moving more freely and scored 16 points in Game 6 and 22 in Game 7. Even so, Brooklyn's hobbled star faced an uphill battle to get anywhere back to full strength even if the Nets advanced past the Bucks. Kyrie Irving was seen limping along the sidelines during Game 7 and the prospect of him playing in the next round was doubtful at best. A second round exit was a bitter pill to swallow for all Nets'fans, but the reality is, health was not on their side and the Nets big 1.5 faced an uphill climb to advance deeper into the playoffs with their star players suffering from significant injuries.