Harden returns to lead Nets against Lakers
The Nets haven’t practiced as a team since losing three-quarters of the roster to the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols, but the Christmas Day show must go on.
Happy Holidays to these Nets, the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed traveling to Los Angeles to play against LeBron James and Russell Westbrook’s Lakers on Saturday. James Harden will headline Brooklyn’s roster, but both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving will miss the game in the health and safety protocols, as will LaMarcus Aldridge, and rookies Cam Thomas, David Duke Jr., Kessler Edwards and Day’Ron Sharpe.
That leaves Patty Mills, Blake Griffin, DeAndre’ Bembry, Bruce Brown, James Johnson, Paul Millsap and Jevon Carter to help Harden for the holidays, as well as the Nets’ four 10-day signings: Langston Galloway, James Ennis, Shaquille Harrison and Wenyen Gabriel. Nic Claxton will also play after battling left wrist soreness, and Joe Harris remains out after undergoing surgery on his left ankle.
That’s a nice number of weapons at Harden’s disposal as he attempts to foil the Lakers’ Christmas in LA.
But it’s not the roster the Nets expected to headline on the holidays. Brooklyn is one of many epicenters of the NBA’s COVID-19 outbreak. More than 140 players league-wide have tested positive for COVID-19 in the month of December. The Nets alone experienced 13 cases – Mills, Griffin, Claxton and the injured Harris are the only players to avoid the virus on Brooklyn’s roster.
It will be an uphill battle for the Nets, who haven’t played since Dec. 18 and have had three games postponed, unable to meet the minimum eight-player requirement in the past week. They will be out of NBA shape and won’t have practiced as a team in over -a week, but will face the task of slowing down two all-time greats in James and Westbrook, and stopping a Lakers team looking to hit its own championship stride.
Lakers All-Star big man Anthony Davis has a sprained MCL in his knee and won’t play, but Los Angeles will be a formidable opponent.
“We just (have to) do the best we can,” head coach Steve Nash said via Zoom conference call on Friday. “We got a lot of guys coming off extended break. Nobody’s in great condition so we have to manage the group, try to be as competitive as possible and at the same time, be careful, guys coming out and playing the game after an absence like this is tricky. We will do what we can.”
Yet the Nets have proven capable of winning at a deficit. They are the best team in the East even without Irving having played a game this season. Durant led the Nets to victories without Harden (in Detroit against the Pistons), with just eight players (against the Toronto Raptors) and with only nine players (against the Philadelphia 76ers). They have done so on the defensive end, where the Nets continue to rank as a top-five NBA defense and ranked earlier in the season as the league’s best threepoint defense.
They have won those games in which they were at a deficit, however, largely thanks to Durant’s MVP caliber play. Harden has not been consistently great enough this season to join that conversation.
It’s a tall task: the first game back from a week-and-a-half off against a championship contender that smells blood in the water. The Nets will need Harden’s greatness and support from his veteran teammates if they’re going to give Brooklyn a Christmas Day victory.
And if they fall short, no one can blame them: Omicron is the Grinch who stole the NBA’s Christmas Day slate. If these two teams meet in the NBA Finals, it will have been well worth the wait.