Freefalling Nets Running Out Of Rope With Tough Climb Ahead
The famous Yogi Berra quote, “It gets late early out there” can also be applied to the Nets’ current predicament.
Brooklyn has already thrown a bunch of winnable games away during this stretch of 17 losses in their last 23 games, including the last 10 in a row. And they could conceivably drop the next four if, as many expect, Kevin Durant, LaMarcus Aldridge and Joe Harris remain sidelined with injuries and newly-acquired Ben Simmons hasn’t completed his ramp-up after about eight months in self-exile until Thursday’s trade from Philadelphia for James Harden.
You argue that the Nets will surely get off the schneid with a win against one of Sacramento, New York, and Washington, their last three games before the All-Star break? Anything’s possible, but have you been watching how this team has played when star-less? It’s been tragic.
Unvaccinated Kyrie Irving will be available for Saturday’s contest versus a tough Miami squad but then he’ll be off straight through the break until a February 26 game in Milwaukee. Assuming nothing changes with either Irving’s incoherent mindset or New York City’s Executive Order 225, he will only be allowed to suit up for eight of the Nets’ final 26 games after Saturday.
And let’s take a look at Brooklyn’s stretch run, shall we? Post-break, 16 of the Nets’ final 23 games will be against teams currently sitting in a playoff seed (including a combined three games against Atlanta and Charlotte, who could easily usurp Brooklyn for 9th and 10th place by those game times). The Knicks comprise three of the seven opponents currently in a lottery seed. Again, Irving would still be declared ineligible as unvaccinated while the Knicks could be poised to make a move into the play-in picture once Derrick Rose returns to health. You know they’re going to treat those games like playoff battles.
The Nets will also face Milwaukee twice, Boston twice, and Dallas, Utah, and Memphis once. Oh, there’s also a certain game on March 10 that will garner some attention—Nets at Philly.
It’s quite a rough path to the regular season finish line. All this while Head Coach Steve Nash has to integrate three new rotation pieces, figuring out on the fly whether to change his switch everything defensive principles to maximize Simmons’ prowess on that end and how the offense will run without Harden’s league-leading 9.4 minutes of ball possession per game, according to NBA.com’s John Schuhmann.
KD is quite capable of winning a slew of games on his own, as evidenced by Brooklyn’s shocking victory over a nearly fully-loaded Sixers squad (only guard Tyrese Maxey was inactive among their usual rotation members) on December 16 when the Nets started and played David Duke Jr. 32 minutes and their entire bench comprised three rookies and emergency replacement player Langston Galloway. Still, do the Nets really want to run Durant 40 minutes per game in the last month before he’d be needed in the playoffs?
They might have to, especially during home games without Irving.
The game has changed in Brooklyn. Where once the regular season mission was to get everybody on board and healthy to chase a title, now the Nets might be in survival mode heading into April.
They should qualify for the postseason, but I’m sure the last thing they want is to be forced into the play-in round.
Actually, the last they’d want is to be forced into a play-in round game in Toronto or New York with vaccine mandates still in effect.