If ever a team was in desperate need of a week off, it’s the Nets, who limped into the All-Star break after falling to the visiting Wizards on Thursday, 117-103.
If only the six days off until Brooklyn next hosts the Celtics were enough to right this teetering ship. The Nets (31-28) sit in eighth place in the Eastern Conference after a stretch of 19 losses in their last 27 games—only four teams have fared worse in that period. On one hand, I feel like they were fortunate to avoid careening into the break on a 14-game losing streak—it took the indifference of sad-sack Sacramento and a miracle at Madison Square Garden to halt an 11-game skid before Washington reminded Brooklyn of all its shortcomings.
If you’re in the camp that the Nets will automatically get back on track next week, let’s not count on the injuries and dysfunction that have hindered the Nets in their slide down the Eastern Conference standings magically disappearing upon their return to action. Head Coach Steve Nash provided updates before Thursday’s contest on his key missing components, and it didn’t sound all that promising.
Nash laid doubt that Kevin Durant, who was playing at an MVP level before an MCL sprain shut him down on January 15 for an estimated four-to-six weeks, will be fully recovered for the Boston game two days shy of the longer time frame. The Nets have every reason to be cautious here, even if it costs them a top-six seed. Three-point shooting artist Joe Harris is trying to work his way back onto the court from a November 14 ankle injury but might instead be forced to succumb to a second surgery, thereby ending his season. Ben Simmons, the featured return in the blockbuster trade that sent superstar James Harden to Philadelphia last week, hasn’t played in an NBA game since the Sixers’ second round loss back on June 20 and is taking his sweet time to ramp up his physical and mental preparation before he makes his Brooklyn debut—who knows when that will occur? And, of course, Kyrie Irving, whose resistance to doing the right thing by taking the COVID-19 vaccine instigated all the distress that followed, is slated to be eligible to play in only eight of the Nets’ final 23 games unless New York City Mayor Eric Adams rescinds/amends the vaccine mandate for its indoor pro athletes, which he didn’t sound too eager to do when asked earlier this week.
This is not where anyone expected this team to be at this point in the season, closer to Lottery Land (with their pick belonging to Houston from last season’s Harden acquisition) than to first place and hoping they can piece things together in the nick of time.
You see, it’s not just the who but also the how. Besides the individuals’ availability that is up in the air—and will always be a variable given the nature and frequency of NBA injuries--Seth Curry, and Andre Drummond, who came along with Simmons from Philly, has yet to play a single minute with either KD or Kyrie. How many games will that five-man unit get so they can work out the kinks on both ends of the court? Even the highest-level players need live game reps to develop a chemistry to compete in the playoffs. They’ll also have to do it against some tough competition, which I outlined in a prior post. (Freefalling Nets Running Out Of Rope With Tough Climb Ahead (substack.com))
And heaven forbid, what if Nash really has to maintain two separate rotations for home and road games into the postseason because of Irving? It’s enough to make every Nets fan who has been looking forward to these playoffs since training camp shiver in angst.
Assuming the Nets eventually get whole and Irving becomes a full participant, they do have the talent to make a deep playoff run. Durant and Irving are supremely=gifted isolation players while Curry is an assassin as a spot-up shooter. Unless Brooklyn draws Philadelphia and center Joel Embiid, I’d start LaMarcus Aldridge over Drummond to compensate for Simmons’ floor spacing consequences. Defensively, Simmons and Durant have the size and athleticism to help Brooklyn’s undersized backcourt and can play at a blistering pace when they get stops.
Patty Mills can then go back to his preferred role as a sixth man, joining Bruce Brown, rookie Cam Thomas (if Harris is indeed done for the year), and one of Drummond/Blake Griffin/Nicolas Claxton, depending on the matchup, to compete for reserve minutes.
That’s a fun rotation. Think about this: No more James Johnson. No more Jevon Carter. No more two-way players Kessler Edwards (who has slammed into the rookie wall hard this month) and David Duke Jr.
We can dream it, but that doesn’t change the nightmare this season has been. And if you thought the All-Star break would signal the wake-up alarm, you might be off by weeks—or worse.
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And speaking of being asleep at the wheel, let me get a few things off my chest about Nash’s performance on Thursday. It was one thing for the Nets players to be a bit exhausted from chasing Wednesday’s game against the Knicks from 28 points down (though Washington was also on a back-to-back after losing in Indiana), but what was Nash’s excuse?
For a second straight game, the Nets’ opening game plan was utterly bizarre. How was Edwards assigned to the Wizards’ shifty point guard Raul Neto, who routinely blew by Edwards to force Brooklyn into scramble mode, while Brown, the Nets’ best perimeter defender, gave up five inches guarding Kyle Kuzma on the wing?
The Nets also are keeping five centers on their roster but with rare exceptions, Nash has been refusing to play more than one at a time. In the wake of Johnson’s late scratch due to a wrist injury, it behooved Nash to match up with the bigger Wizards with one of his extra 5s. Alas, he didn’t, and as a result, the Nets bled points in the paint.
And when the Nets sent extra help inside, it left Washington’s three-point shooters wide open in the corners. The Wizards entered the game as the league’s third-worst three-point shooting team, yet they were able to convert on 12-of-24 attempts from behind the arc.
Griffin had a satisfactory eight-minute run as a “Twin Tower 4” in the first half but did not see the floor thereafter. If energy was a team-wide issue, why not give Claxton, who hasn’t played since his removal from the Nets’ injury list over the weekend, a dry run for a few minutes? Either would have provided a better matchup option than giving extended court time to the diminutive Carter and underdeveloped Duke Jr.
Finally, Nash had an opportunity to challenge an obvious missed out-of-bounds call that clearly went off the leg of Washington forward Deni Avdija with the Nets down by 10 points with just under eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. Not that a challenge would have turned the game around, but what was Nash saving it for? Instead, Washington point guard Ish Smith, who would be a $100 million player if he could face the Nets 82 times per year, buried a foul line jumper to keep the Nets at bay.
I haven’t been all that harsh on Nash this season because he has been presented with unprecedented circumstances and, for the most part, has marshalled a sense of resiliency within this team in spite of all the adversity. That being said, this was one of those nights where I’m hoping it’s just that he too needs a break.