{"id":628004,"date":"2026-02-27T10:09:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T10:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/628004\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T10:09:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T10:09:42","slug":"cavs-guard-james-harden-expected-to-play-through-broken-thumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/628004\/","title":{"rendered":"Cavs guard James Harden expected to play through broken thumb"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">According to ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania, Harden could be back sooner rather than later. Even though he didn\u2019t play in Wednesday\u2019s loss to the <a href=\"http:\/\/brewhoop.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>, it\u2019s reported that he is planning on playing through the right thumb fracture, and surgery will not be required.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Estimating a timetable for a complete recovery from this injury is difficult if you don\u2019t know the severity. The best estimate is that it could be two to four weeks before it completely heals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">On one hand, it\u2019s easy to see why Harden would want to play through this. He needs to find time to gel with his new teammates, and he\u2019s running out of time to do so with the playoffs just around the corner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">At the same time, the Cavs will need to be at or near 100% if they want to have postseason success. Bringing Harden back too early could jeopardize that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">We\u2019ll see how this unfolds. The Cavs play two of their next three games against the conference-leading <a href=\"http:\/\/detroitbadboys.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Detroit Pistons<\/a>, with their first coming on the road on Friday evening. Getting to see how Harden plays in that matchup is enticing, but a physical Detroit team could be the last opponent you\u2019d want to subject a guard with a broken thumb to.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Harden has played seven games with the Cavs. He\u2019s averaging 18.9 points and 8 assists on .494\/.488\/.867 shooting splits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania, Harden could be back sooner rather than later. Even though he didn\u2019t play&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,148,147,305,193,3846,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-628004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cavs-injury-report","11":"tag-cavs-news","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","14":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","15":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116142051384532534","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}