Nets’ Season-Long Curse Bags Nash Before Yet Another Home Blowout Loss
Anyone know of an NBA player who dabbles in sorcery that the Nets can access on the waiver wire? Or how about a wizard on Craig’s List for Brooklyn’s Performance Team? With Kyrie Irving and his sage still banned form Barclays Center due to the New York City vaccine mandate, no team is in more dire need of a curse-breaker to alter the negative juju that has engulfed them this season.
The depleted Nets, losers of 21 of their last 30 games after Monday night’s non-competitive 133-97 defeat at home to Toronto, took another off-the-court hit about 30 minutes before tip-off when they announced that Head Coach Steve Nash entered into the league’s Health and Safety protocols.
While we don’t know as of this writing what precipitated the quarantine (positive, false positive, or inconclusive test). Nets fans fear that this is only the beginning of another dark wave. As in not just Nash needing time away from the team, but it being followed by a steady stream of players heading into the protocols.
For it’s been that kind of a season. Instead of gearing up for a run at the title, the Nets are floundering in eighth place in the Eastern Conference, They’re not only settling in as a play-in seed, they’re only four games up on the Wizards from missing the postseason altogether.
And if you think there’s no way the Nets can blow such an advantage, you haven’t been watching all that closely this season. Whenever you think the worst is behind them--bam! More bad news hits them like a ton of bricks.
It was difficult enough for assistant Jacque Vaughn when he took the reins from Nash on Monday with nothing in his arsenal to stop the Raptors’ onslaught--no Kevin Durant (MCL sprain), no Ben Simmons (conditioning ramp-up), no Joe Harris (ankle), and, of course, no Irving—he must have been shouting at the heavens when center Andre Drummond went down in a heap after stepping on Precious Achiuwa’s foot in the first quarter. I think all of Nets Nation was shocked that Drummond, who has had a decent impact since coming over with Simmons and Seth Curry in the James Harden blockbuster trade at the February 10 deadline, was able to come back into the contest. With this team, that’s usually a six-week injury.
Even when you think you hear about potential progress, a major letdown isn’t far off. Remember when Nash said after the All-Star break that he expected KD to play in one of these first three games thereafter? Well, Monday was Game 3, and Nash already declared him out for Tuesday’s back end in Toronto, with Thursday’s home tilt versus Miami iffy. Nets fans are dreading seeing the word “setback” on their Twitter feeds in the next few days.
As for Simmons and Harris, neither is close to returning, with Simmons experiencing back pain after sitting out the last eight months to engineer his escape out of Philly and Harris still hoping he can rehab his way through the pain instead of undergoing a second surgery that would shelve him for the season.
Saving the grandest tease for last, a mere hours after I posted a column on how NYC Mayor Eric Adams should lift the mandate that prevented Irving from playing home games (Mayor Adams: Stop Punishing Nets Fans With Outdated Vaccine Mandate (substack.com)), Adams rescinded the Key2NYC mandate. Perfect timing, right?
Of course not. Like Lucy as the holder for Charley Brown, Adams’ press secretary almost immediately yanked the proverbial football from Nets fans. Nope, he tweeted (almost too gleefully because he is allegedly a Knicks fan), Irving is still ineligible for Nets home games due to the private employer vaccine mandate.
So, after March 7, the date the original Executive Order will lapse, Irving can practice at Brooklyn’s facility with the team, sit on the bench at Barclays Center in close proximity with the team, and watch his team potentially play against one of about a dozen unvaccinated opponents from around the league. But heaven forbid he actually play for the team in a game.
The illogic is confounding. Adams went on CNBC on Monday and acted quizzically when asked about the contradiction of unvaccinated visitors. “Makes no sense,” Adams said. “And I don’t know who thought of putting such a ridiculous rule in place…but these are the rules.”
Gee, if only Adams knew of someone in authority who could rectify such a glaring hypocrisy in the City’s health policy.
Unfortunately, I sense that only Irving can clear this up, as he can’t count on the City to do the right thing when it comes to matching health policy with the underlying data and it’s been reported that a preseason league memo sent to all teams prohibits any of them from buying their way out of fines from breaking ordinances. Irving, though, can just get the jab.
It was always that simple. Irving, however, has his own wrong-headed ideas about the vaccine gleaned from whatever mystical sources he consults. Again, that’s why for this team—this season—it seems like it’s going to take something otherworldly to reset its course away from this doomed path.
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Just a few words about the actual game, which is more than it deserves….
Rarely does the opening sequence of an NBA contest set the tone for what’s to follow for the remainder of the night—there’s just way too many possessions. However, you could have turned off Monday’s game immediately after Brooklyn forward James Johnson snatched the opening tip. Johnson carelessly got his pocket picked in the backcourt by Toronto’s sensational rookie Scottie Barnes, who cruised to the hoop before getting hacked by Johnson.
That was the first of 17 steals by the Raptors, the most Brooklyn has coughed up since a December 22, 2016 game versus the Warriors.
Monday’s game had the feel of one of those lopsided high school mismatches. The Nets just don’t have anyone on the roster who could beat their man off the dribble, and then they handled the ball like it was covered in vaseline. Countless times a Raptor would just rip the ball out of a Nets player’s hands like they were a child. In total, Brooklyn committed 23 turnovers which Toronto converted into 31 points.
Brooklyn’s defensive woes are tragic enough—as soon as a ballhandler gets anywhere near the paint, the Nets swarm in like bees sensing sugar, leaving the corners wide open for easy three-point looks. Gifting all those freebies off turnovers was a death sentence.