James Harden to miss Game 2 against Bucks

James Harden, who left the Brooklyn Nets’ last game early in the first quarter, won’t play in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series on Monday at Barclays Center.

The star guard is nursing a right hamstring injury that limited him to 43 seconds of playing time in the Nets’ 115-107 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday.

After the game, Kevin Durant said it was difficult to compete without Harden.

“We try not to be too emotional out there, but losing one of your leaders like that on the first play of the game, we had to regroup for a couple of minutes and figure out what was next, but I think the coaches, the coaching staff did a great job of moving forward,” Durant said. “Guys came in and just tried to play extremely hard. We didn’t care about anything else but playing and executing the game plan and just leaving it all out there.”

James Harden hampered by hamstring injury in regular season

James Harden sat out 20 of 21 games late in the season while dealing with a right hamstring injury.

The playoff injury now puts Nets coach Steve Nash, who’s in his first season at the helm, in the unenviable position of concocting game plans without the high-scoring playmaker.

“When you prepare for a game and he’s such a big part of the game plan that can throw you off,” Nash said over the weekend, according to The Associated Press. “But I was proud of the guys that they didn’t get rattled, they hung in there and got the win,” Nash said.