Hard landing and heavy braking to me suggests he/she wanted to get stopped pronto (for whatever reason)

Trailing link gear hide a multitude of "firm" landings while straight legs magnify everything. or maybe it was:
gust causing a loss of airspeed
a little wake turbulence
a slick runway (and wanted to make firm contact with the ground)
anti-skid issues (see above)
his/her tenth leg of the day
he/she was operating on reduced rest
he/she was on the fourth day of the trip
a random false warning distracted him/her at touch down
tower called asking what gate he/she was going to
just one of "those" days

(all of which have happened to me)

Side note: those perfect, you never felt the touch down, landings put more wear on tires than a normal/firmish landing. On the super soft landings, the tire's initial contact patch is smaller and the tire takes longer to spin up. The result is more initial skidding and excess spot wear.