The season has devolved quickly for the Nets, whose crash since Kevin Durant left the lineup after spraining his left MCL has them plummeting down the Jap Convention pecking order and questioning tips on how to strategy the commerce deadline this Thursday.
Kyrie Irving’s return from unvaccinated exile for highway video games hasn’t made up for Durant’s absence. The Nets misplaced their seventh consecutive recreation — their longest skid for the reason that 2019-20 season — Friday in a noncompetitive blowout at Utah.
Potential commerce candidate James Harden additionally missed that recreation with a hamstring situation, however Irving’s presence has not helped the Nets keep away from this disastrous stretch. They're 3-7 within the 10 video games Irving has performed this season, getting into Sunday’s highway contest in opposition to the Nuggets. The seven-time All-Star guard has averaged 22.8 factors and 4.8 assists over greater than 35 minutes per look.
“I don’t really feel like I’m very near the place I need to be personally,” Irving stated after scoring 15 factors on 6-for-20 capturing in opposition to the Jazz. “The eight-month layoff, coming off my ankle harm [last season] and never with the ability to have the summer season that I wished to, not with the ability to have preseason, not with the ability to simply dial in with the fellows early on within the season the way in which I wished to, it positively had an impression.
“However I’m simply battling by way of it and making an attempt to place a full 48-minute recreation collectively the place I do know I’m myself [and] finally, I’m capable of lead with the opposite guys on my staff to win. We’ve obtained just a few [wins], however for the previous couple of I’ve performed in, we haven’t gotten it. So we simply take our hits and we simply continue learning from it and rising.”
The sliding Nets (29-23 general) are practically as near the eleventh place Wizards within the Jap Convention (5 video games) as they're to the top-seeded Bulls (4), after Washington’s dwelling loss to Saturday to the league-leading Suns.
Even the middling Knicks are inside 5.5 video games of the sixth-place Nets, who immediately sit only a half-game above the Raptors and the 7-10 play-in situation.
“I've mountain-high expectations for myself. However proper now, I really feel like, with our personnel, if I’m not capturing nicely or I’m not taking part in nicely or we don’t have the identical manufacturing from guys that we’re used to getting it from, it’s going to be a troublesome evening,” Irving stated. “I don’t need that to be form of the word on our staff. … I need all our guys to really feel assured.
“Everyone works onerous on their video games. Everyone has that confidence to have the ability to make an impression. We’ve simply obtained to maintain that forward-facing mentality.”
Coach Steve Nash’s staff has 30 video games remaining, and Irving presently can be eligible for simply 11 of them until he decides to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or mandate guidelines are lifted in New York and different cities with such restrictions. There really are 14 highway video games left, however Irving additionally at the moment can be ineligible to play in two video games at Madison Sq. Backyard and one in Toronto.
“It’s actually simply the place we're, going through actuality, that we’re not profitable ballgames proper now,” Irving stated. “We’ve obtained to form of get out of that gap with only one win after which begin a brand new streak from that time. However [it’s] no time to really feel like our season is in doomsday or we have to push the panic button in any respect factors.
“We've to face actuality that loads of guys, loads of my teammates, we’re nonetheless attending to know each other, how we play, what’s our spots, offensive and defensive tendencies. After which communication. … It’s not simply from the top coach or the assistants, however actually simply from us as teammates. Trusting that now we have the expertise to win basketball video games.”
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