SHORTHANDED NETS FALL TO MAVS, STREAK ENDS
In a perfect world, the Nets’ superstar trio of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving would have shot it out with the Dallas duo of Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis. Perfection, however, has evaded the Nets this season.
Durant missed his seventh straight game with a hamstring strain, and Irving sat out due to injury maintenance on the right shoulder he received surgery on last. And there were no Harden heroics on Saturday night as the Nets lost 115-98 to the Mavericks and their wellearned eight-game winning streak, the longest active NBA run, came to an end.
The Nets did not have enough weapons to contend. A valiant effort through halftime was blown wide open in the third quarter, when Dallas held the Nets to just 18 points. The loss robbed the Nets of an opportunity to supplant the Philadelphia 76ers as the team with the Eastern Conference’s best record.
“First half, 20 points off turnovers, second half felt like we ran out of gas, didn’t have enough answers at either end. It’s tough,” Nets head coach Steve Nash said. “We’re missing some guys, and then Tyler (Johnson) unfortunately had a terrible migraine, and just made us shorter and shorter off the bench. Less options, less cohesion, less continuity, and Dallas played well. They made shots when it counted, made plays when it counted, and they deserved it.”
The Nets turned the ball over 19 times to just eight giveaways from the Mavericks. They averaged just 11.5 turnovers over the eight straight games they won, the second-best turnover average behind only the Phoenix Suns during that span.
Harden, who accounted for six the turnovers himself, absorbed the blame for the team’s sloppy play.
“A lot of them were careless, a lot of them were just not good plays, trying to thread the needle and whatnot,” he said. “You give an offensive team like that an opportunity, and they did a great job of capitalizing. So we’ve just got to be better. I’ve got to be better individually in securing the basketball, and we will be better.”
Harden also said the Nets had dead legs due to the number of players who missed the game and that “we just didn’t have it,” but veteran forward Jeff Green would not use the lack of depth as a reason for the loss.
“No, this is a no excuse team. If you’re on the floor, you’re going to play as hard as you can,” Green said. “They just got the best of us tonight. And they got the win. That’s all it really was. It’s not about us running out of gas or anything. We just didn’t come ready to play and they won.”
Harden scored 25 points in the first half but the role players did not contribute enough to combat Doncic
and Porzingis, who combined for 45 points. Porzingis, the former Knicks star, looked spry and was a matchup nightmare for a Nets team with no legitimate answer for him on the defensive end.
Veteran forward Jeff Green and wing Bruce Brown scored 12 points, but no other players aside from Harden scored in double figures.
DURANT WILL PICK ALL-STAR TEAM
Nets star Kevin Durant will not play in the NBA All-Star Game due to an injured hamstring, but he will play captain and general manager for his AllStar squad Team Durant, the Daily News confirmed Saturday.
Durant, who was named Eastern Conference AllStar captain for the the March 7 game by raking in more combined fan, player and media votes, will still select his team’s starters and captains against Western Conference captain LeBron James despite not actually being available to play in the game.
The NBA All-Star Draft will take place on Thursday and will air on TNT. It is unclear whether Durant will travel to Atlanta for the All-Star Game.
Durant has missed the Nets last seven games dealing with a hamstring strain he sustained against the Golden State Warriors on Feb. 13. In a subsequent MRI, the Nets discovered their star forward would need to sit out beyond the All-Star break out of precaution for his complete injury recovery.
Durant averaged 29 points, seven rebounds and five assists per game so far this season, his first games since rupturing his Achilles in the 2019 NBA Finals as a member of the Warriors. The Nets went 5-1 in games that he, James Harden and Kyrie Irving played together.