“One half of basketball … two games … Games 6 and 7,” Harden said wistfully, struggling to process the fact that Golden State rang up a 33-15 margin in its favorite quarter in Game 7 after winning the second half of Game 6 in a ridiculous 61-25 rout.

Said Rockets guard Eric Gordon, who missed 10 of 12 3-point attempts: “If Chris was out there, we’d be playing on Thursday.”

After confirming about 90 minutes before tipoff that Paul would be unavailable, Houston had to settle, in the end, for giving Golden State an almighty scare — thanks largely to those narrow victories in Games 4 and 5 that obscured the fact they were outscored by 63 points over the course of the series.

To the Warriors, though, it was a far closer battle than that — with Golden State well aware that its remarkable 68-point cumulative edge in the series’ seven third quarters made a huge difference. The quick 17-point lead that the Rockets seized in Game 6 with Paul rooted to the bench had even the Golden State coach Steve Kerr convinced that Houston “could see the finals at that point.”

But Houston’s 11-point lead at halftime lead in Game 7, in a virtual replay of Game 6, didn’t hold in the face of yet another third-quarter rush from the reigning champions. At the most critical point of the season, Harden no longer had Paul to share the playmaking or the pressure burden that the Rockets had purposefully split between them all season, hoping to keep both fresh and impactful throughout a long playoff run.

“It’s the worst thing that could happen to him,” Houston Coach Mike D’Antoni said of Paul, referring to the emotional hit taken by the All-Star guard to miss out on the game that could have sent him to the finals for the first time.

Harden, Paul and D’Antoni quickly formed a close bond through their respective past playoff disappointments — and the opportunity to banish their demons and rewrite their legacies together. The opportunity at hand, as a result, made the tension tangible even before tipoff.