Why is it so hard to guard James Harden?

The opponent: Houston. The defensive assignment for the game: James Harden. The outcome: Usually the same.

Limiting Harden's prodigious offensive output is the biggest defensive challenge in the NBA today. He is a gifted scorer, outstanding passer, creative shot-maker and playmaker, master of the stepback 3-pointer and a great finisher at the rim. He also is unorthodox with his moves and adept at maximizing the rules to his benefit, especially drawing fouls.

“Well, it’s not very fun,” Golden State’s Klay Thompson said of the challenge.

“You’re in a lose, lose, lose situation with him,” Washington’s Bradley Beal said.

At 36.3 points per game in 2018-19, Harden has the seventh-best single-season scoring average in NBA history. Only Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan have averaged more.

He’s doing things Jordan and Kobe Bryant never did and rivaling what Chamberlain did. Harden’s streak of 32 consecutive games with at least 30 points, which ended Monday, is second to Chamberlain.

He leads the league with 42 30-point games and 22 40-point games. He has a 50-point triple-double this season and three more triple-doubles with at least 40 points.

So, how do you stop, or rather, limit Harden? For Paul George, who is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, it is a paradox.

The very thing necessary to defend him is the very thing you can’t do.

“The difficulty is guarding him without fouling. He gets a lot of foul calls," George said. "It’s hard to bring physicality and be a defender in this league when he’s so good at drawing those fouls. Try to be physical and guard him without fouling. Which is hard. The same reason it’s tough to guard him is the same reason how you have to guard him.”

Be physical. And don’t, under any circumstance, put him on the foul line.

“If you foul him, he’s going to make his free throws,” Beal said.

Those are the difficult keys to defending Harden, who is physical himself and can absorb and initiate contact and shoots 11.5 free throws per game, making 87.1 percent.

“You have to guard him differently because of how he’s officiated and how talented a player he is,” Los Angeles Laker Kyle Kuzma said. “It’s really unorthodox defending him.”

In a Lakers-Rockets game earlier this season, the Lakers used unorthodox methods to defend Harden. Josh Hart held his hands behind his back while guarding Harden to show referees he wasn’t using his hands.

“For us, we went to the extreme, putting our hands behind our backs like they were tied, but he’s a tough guard,” Kuzma said.

Not only is guarding Harden difficult, so is officiating him. He has a penchant for putting defenders in compromising positions and has tricks up his sleeve to draw fouls. It requires a discerning whistle to officiate Harden.

Playing in the Eastern Conference, Beal has to face Harden just twice a season.

“As many tough shots as he’s going to make, sometimes you just have to pat him on the butt and keep moving,” Beal said.

“You just have to make it difficult for him.”