Are James Harden and the Clippers title contenders?

IT TOOK 94 seconds for James Harden to show the NBA why the LA Clippers had spent the better part of five maddening months trying to acquire him.

On his very first touch as a member of the Clippers, Harden stood on the right wing of the Madison Square Garden floor. With New York Knicks guard Quentin Grimes on his hip, Harden used a screen from 7-footer Ivica Zubac to get downhill to the paint. Center Mitchell Robinson, New York’s chief disruptor on defense with his 7-foot-4 wingspan, had stepped up to the top of the key to seal off the drive. But as Robinson extended his arms to minimize Harden’s line of sight, the lefty rifled a bounce pass back to Zubac, putting him on the doorstep of the basket.

Harden’s dime had been thrown directly between the legs of Robinson, a proud defender who had no choice but to foul Zubac. After the whistle blew, Robinson slammed the ball into the Madison Square Garden floor — a concession that Harden, despite being on his fourth team in four years and missing nearly all of training camp and the first two weeks of the season, was still one of the NBA’s trickiest players, and had clearly gotten the best of Robinson and the Knicks.

Still, the Clips were largely a mess that night in New York, committing a season-high 22 turnovers in a 111-97 loss. The outcome was the same two nights later, and two nights after that. The Clippers managed to lose their first five games with Harden, prompting harsh criticism of the 34-year-old and his fit with fellow stars Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Russell Westbrook. Sure, coach Tyronn Lue said from the beginning that he’d need 10 games or so to find ideal lineups with the addition of Harden. But the early punditry had already rendered a verdict: This was a disaster.

What happened next is as surprising to some as it is season-defining.

During the skid, Harden had begun putting in extra work after shootarounds and practices with Zubac, his pick-and-roll partner, to improve their timing and on-court chemistry. And after initial resistance, Harden — known for his tendency to pound the ball in one-on-one play — began pulling the trigger on open catch-and-shoot opportunities. Los Angeles snapped its losing streak by winning five out of its next eight games. Then, earlier this month, the Clippers won nine in a row –the organization’s longest winning streak in almost eight calendar years — including victories over the Denver Nuggets, Sacramento Kings, Knicks and Dallas Mavericks.

On the surface, Harden’s counting stats are down; this season marks the first time since his Oklahoma City days that he’s scoring less than 20 points per game. (He’s taking just 11 shots per game, his fewest since becoming a full-time starter with the Rockets back in 2012.) But a closer look at Harden and the Clippers –14-5 and boasting the seventh-best net rating since Harden’s first five outings — indicates that he’s thrived in an entirely different way.

“That’s the great thing about James,” Lue said. ” … In the past, [Leonard and George] had to take every shot. They had to create every shot.”

Now they don’t. And the Clippers look like a legitimate title contender.

THE FUNNY THING about Harden’s nutmeg in New York? He already had that part down. He can easily thread a pass through legs or crowds of players.

The more challenging task for a skilled star such as Harden, particularly after having possessed the ball for more time than any NBA player over the past 10 regular seasons, per the league’s tracking data, is being comfortable not possessing it.

Lue tried to drill that into Harden’s psyche, and during the early losing streak, amid all the whispers about fit and unhappiness, Harden finally began to see what he meant.

“[I’ve gotta] shoot the catch-and-shoots,” Harden told reporters last month. “I haven’t really had catch-and-shoot [opportunities] for real since the OKC days.”

It didn’t come naturally. How could it? Last month, Harden famously said he wasn’t a system player; rather he was the system.

But lately, he’s been doing just that — 35% of his attempts from 3 this season are catch-and-shoots, up from 27% last season — and defenses have paid handsomely: He’s shooting a career-best 42.9% from deep on six tries per game.

Another advantage: Catch-and-shoot treys have reduced his workload, and they’re boosting his efficiency on plays in which he does call his own number.

Last season with the Philadelphia 76ers, Harden held the ball for almost nine minutes per game — second most in the league after Luka Doncic — and used ball screens 66 times per 100 possessions, according to Second Spectrum data.

This season, Harden’s controlling the ball for just six minutes per game and using just 43 ball screens per 100 possessions.

The result? He’s scoring a whopping 1.33 points per isolation he orchestrates, by far the best efficiency rate of any player who has gone one-on-one at least 50 times this season.

He had a masterpiece showing in Indiana last week, spearheading a 151-127 victory over the Pacers while dropping 35 points, handing out nine assists and draining eight triples — the last of which was a four-point play that he celebrated by laying on the Gainbridge Fieldhouse floor and making an invisible snow angel. Television cameras showed Harden’s teammates — including the usually stoic Leonard — celebrating wildly on the sideline.

“Everything built up to that moment,” Zubac told ESPN. “It definitely hurt us to lose those games at the beginning [of Harden’s tenure] and to have everyone writing us off. But we kept working, and I feel like that moment with the four-point play was where you saw it all come together. It was a great moment, and we were all just really happy for him.”

MUCH OF THAT happiness stems from this: Harden working smarter — not harder — both rests and unlocks the Clippers’ other stars.

It’s no coincidence that George, who brought the ball up to start half-court possessions a career-high 20 times per game last season, is turning the ball over considerably less now that he’s starting the offense only 13 times per game this season, according to ESPN’s Stats & Information.

Leonard, who is also dribbling and possessing the ball far less this season, has been a wrecking ball in December, logging an eye-popping 61/50/96 slash line while averaging 29.3 points, 6 rebounds and 4.1 assists through nine games.

And Westbrook, whose move to a sixth-man role coincided with the team’s winning streak, has looked like a different player, too. In just minutes 20 minutes per night since mid-November, and playing more against second units, Westbrook has transformed from one of the most turnover-prone players in basketball — his 4.2% rate of passes that led to turnovers was second-highest in the league prior to the lineup change — to a more sure-handed one (1.8% turnover rate on passes since the move to the bench) who now energizes the defense.

With the shortened playing stints, Westbrook has been able to put more emphasis on that end. He ranks second in the league in field-goal percentage and third in effective field-goal percentage allowed as the contesting defender among players who have guarded at least 175 shots, per Second Spectrum. (Westbrook also rates in the top 10 leaguewide in points allowed per touch among players who have defended at least 1,200 touches so far.)

Taken together, the Clippers look like a completely different team from that Nov. 6 game in New York.

“You can just see they have a flow — they’ve learned how to play off of Harden some, and those guys are getting more comfortable with him,” said Knicks guard Donte DiVincenzo, who played opposite Harden and the Clippers back in November and again on Dec. 16, when Los Angeles breezed to a 22-point home victory.

“It’s honestly night and day,” an Eastern Conference scout told ESPN of the Clippers’ turnaround. “There’s more rhyme and reason to what they’re doing. They go one-on-one a lot still, but they have the ability to play quick, too, because they can space you out so much. With an A-1 passer like Harden, they can hurt you in more ways now than they could before.”

This isn’t to suggest Los Angeles is foolproof. The past few days have served as a reminder that health remains the Clippers’ kryptonite. Leonard, who played in each of the team’s first 27 games, missed the last two against the Thunder and Celtics with a sore hip. The result was a pair of blowout defeats to end the nine-game winning streak.

Still, what Harden and the Clippers have done in recent weeks can’t be glossed over.

Since Lue replaced Westbrook in the lineup with wing Terance Mann after the 0-5 start with Harden, the Clippers’ starting five has been the fourth-most efficient in the league among five-man lineups with at least 200 minutes together, outscoring opponents by 16.5 points per 100 possessions. To put that into context, the Clips’ plus-16.5 net rating is better than the defending-champion Nuggets’ starting five (plus-13.1) was last season.

“It took us a little bit to get used to things, because he plays with a totally different pace and style — one we’ve never played with before,” said Zubac, adding that Harden continues to work with him in pick-and-roll scenarios after practices. “But he’s made life easier for all of us already.”