One of his step backs tonight was shown on the post-game, and it was such a blatant travel that Barkley and Shaq were basically laughing about it. He steps forward, picks up his dribble and then jumps, both feet in the air, backwards about 3 feet behind the 3 point line and then shoots. Didn't even make a pretense of keeping his pivot foot on the ground.
The part about his game that bothers me more than anything is that he initiates contact all the time. Yeah, he does it when he gets a guy out of position. Kyrie does the same move, when he gets passed a guy, and has him beat, he immediately steps inside, so the guy has to go through him to get back in front. But Harden does it all the time. There was a replay from the overhead view tonight where Harden was coming in from the left side, and had a clear easy layup with his left hand, and instead of just taking it, he literally takes a full step and puts his shoulder into the chest of the defender and buckles him and then hits the layup flailing his arms like he'd been shot. That is not a defensive foul. It's just not. It's an offensive foul. And the refs reward this type of play over and over and over again for him, but when guys like Jaylen and Tatum are getting hit to the body on every trip to the rim, they don't get a single call. God forbid they initiate the contact like Harden, they'd be called for so many offensive fouls, they wouldn't make it to halftime.
He is a great player, and he doesn't need to do this shit all the time. We saw it at the end of the game tonight.
All of this is what makes the shit Marcus Smart did to him this year even more awesome, because finally, the refs called him for the fouls, instead of the other way around.