James Harden took over when the Cleveland Cavaliers needed it most, scoring seven points in the final 90 seconds Saturday as they beat the Detroit Pistons 116-109 in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The win cut Detroit's series lead to 2-1 and came after Cleveland spent much of the night chasing from behind.
Harden finished with 19 points, seven assists and three turnovers, but the late shot-making told the story. He hit a 15-point step-back jumper with 1:29 remaining, then answered a Cade Cunningham dunk with a floater before burying a 25-foot step-back 3-pointer with 25.9 seconds left to seal the game. Donovan Mitchell led Cleveland with 35 points, and the Cavaliers got the kind of closing burst they did not have in Game 2, when Harden scored just 10 points on 3-of-13 shooting.
That performance mattered because the first two games in Detroit had raised real doubts about how much Cleveland could count on the player it acquired at the trade deadline. Harden shot 32 percent in those games, went 1-for-11 on 3-pointers and committed 11 turnovers while making nine field goals. On Saturday, after trailing by 16 at halftime, he steadied the Cavaliers in the exact moments that had gone against them earlier in the postseason.
Detroit had won four games in the clutch this postseason, the most in the NBA, while Cleveland had four losses in the clutch during the playoffs, most in the league. That backdrop made the final minutes look less like a routine playoff swing and more like a test of which team could trust its best scorer when the possession count got tight. Cunningham answered with a 27-point triple-double, but Cleveland kept landing the last punch.
Mitchell said the outcome fit Harden's reputation and the way the two stars have learned to work together. He said there is a trust between them that makes those moments happen, and Harden said he loves it when the ball finds him in those spots, adding that it is a product of daily repetition and confidence. Kenny Atkinson said it was the version of Harden he has seen for years and called the variety in his game impressive, a reminder that Cleveland did not add a role player at the deadline but a veteran who has reached the playoffs in all 17 of his NBA seasons. He has never won a championship, and the first two games of this series only sharpened the question of whether the old playoff concerns would show up again. For one night, they did not.
