1.   If not for the fast-break points that have grown harder to get as the series has progressed, Sprewell would be scoring in single digits each night.

2.   Most parents agreed that the battle grows harder with age.

3.   The already-impossible task of dipping into the pocketbooks of Maricopa County taxpayers just grew harder by another order of magnitude.

4.   But as the costs of the war have mounted, those pledges have grown harder to fulfill.