The game ball would’ve been waiting in Dort’s locker had the Thunder won.
“I thought he gave great effort,” coach Billy Donovan said. “He worked his tail off the entire time he was out there. He tried to make it as hard as he could. I thought our whole team did a really good job of trying to make it as hard as we could on James.
“Listen, (Harden) didn’t have a great first half and maybe our defense had something to do with that, or part of the reason, but also I’ve seen him make very, very difficult shots with defenders hanging all over him.