No question Nets got it right by hiring Nash
It’s easy to overlook how well he’s done amid COVID, Kyrie drama
The Knicks are back to dominating the basketball conversation around here, finally for something more than being as bad at basketball as the Giants and Jets are at football. It’s just the way things are, even when they’re a .500 team. They’re the Knicks, and this is New York, and they were always the NBA, and they were once Clyde and Willis and DeBusschere and Earl (the Pearl), and they never left for Jersey before coming back to Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn.
Maybe the Knicks can be a lot better over the second half of the season the way they were last year, and make a run at the Nets for the city championship. But for now the Nets, over last season and this season, are the best team in town, just not in basketball but in any sport. And the best show. And the guy coaching the best team in town is Steve Nash.
People still wondered if Nash was the right guy for the job even as the Nets were making their run in 2020-21, all the way to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, which truly felt more like the conference finals between the Nets and the Bucks. That was the night the Nets would have beaten the Bucks if Kevin Durant’s toe hadn’t been on the 3-point line with one second left in regulation, as he seemed to have made another shot from where Ebbets Field used to be and beaten Giannis and the Bucks.
“My big-ass foot stepped on the line,” Durant would say when it was over, and his team had come close to a series against the Hawks that you know they would have won, even with Kyrie Irving hurt and James Harden playing on one good leg because of one very bad right hamstring.
The Brooklyn Nets, in what was really their first loud roar after signing Durant and Irving and trading for Harden, had come that close to becoming the New York City team putting itself into position to fight for a title. In a year when Tom Thibodeau had earned as much praise as he did for the Knicks ending up 41-31 and with the fourth place in the Eastern Conference, a season in which
Nash had his doubters every step of the way and all the way until Durant stepped on the line the way he did, it was the Nets who put themselves in position to become the first city basketball team to make it to the Finals since the Knicks of 1999.
The Nets made it to two NBA Finals not long after that, but they were still over in Jersey then. Now they are at the Barclays Center.
And suddenly Nash, a brilliant basketball player and basketball mind as a player, coming into this weekend, has a lifetime record of 74-39 with the Nets, after never having coached anywhere in his life before Joe Tsai and Sean Marks gave him his chance.
In the basketball conversation of the city, we talk about a lot of things around the Nets, starting with Irving’s chuckleheaded and selfish position on being unvaccinated — think of him as their Novak Djokovic, with only half the problems with his city and with his sport than Djokovic is having — and the immense problems it creates for his teammates and for his coach.
We do not talk enough about the job the coach is doing, especially in light of the challenges he has faced this season, and not just because of Kyrie (I, Me) Irving.
The other night the Nets played an overtime game against the Spurs and then had some issues before flying across the country to lose to a very depleted Portland team. This is what Nash said afterward:
“Guys were gassed. I thought we had some good stretches, but overall I don’t think we had the juice to follow through and finish the job enough. You know, I don’t know if anyone has had a 6 hours flight between games. I know our guys were tired after yesterday’s overtime game. So to get on a 6-hour flight here. It felt evident to me that they didn’t have the pop, the juice to get the stops.”
So they came into the weekend at 26-15, tied with the Heat for second place in the Eastern Conference. There was a time when they looked like the best team in the conference, just not lately. Harden has clearly not been himself. Durant, of course, has been tremendous, even as there have been legitimate concerns about him wearing down as the season goes along because of all the minutes he has played so far.
Then there is Irving, still a streak of light when he has the ball in his hands, still one of the most talented guards in the league at 6-2, only allowed to play road games because he continues to
refuse to be vaccinated. So these are extraordinary circumstances for everyone involved, starting with Irving’s coach, who now coaches one Nets team at home and another on the road, all because of the stubbornness and self-absorption of his star. Irving is lucky he hasn’t been booted the way Australia is trying to boot Djokovic.
They all defend him, though, coach and players, because they are more concerned about what’s best for the team than Irving is himself. Maybe they’re all playing the long game here, hoping that if the Nets go deep enough into the postseason, at least as deep as last season, that maybe the rules will change, and they won’t have to face the prospect of playing the kind of Game 7 they did against the Bucks at home last May on the road this time, and without Irving, who said he was joining Durant in Brooklyn because of his dream for them to win a title together.
Call it half-a-dream for now, because of a half-assed position on vaccines.
“Obviously, he’s an incredible player, no matter what capacity we incorporate him in,” Nash said in the run-up to Irving’s return.
So Nash incorporates Irving as best he can, the Nets coach does. He mixes and matches and tries different lineups and different rotations. Durant is everything he has ever been. So is Irving, when he is out there. Harden got off to a slow start himself, and didn’t look like himself, but keeps playing his way into the season, and is back to averaging 22 points a game. Steve Nash continues to show that he can coach talent, not always the easiest thing in the world to do. There is still half a season to go. We saw the possibilities for his team the other night in Chicago against the best record in the conference.
So many questions around this team yet to be answered. No longer any questions about the coach.
2020 draft who led the NFL in completion percentage this season. He went 24 for 34 for 244 yards Saturday.
Helped by some problematic officiating by Jerome Boger’s crew that might have allowed Burrow’s touchdown pass to Tyler Boyd to count when it shouldn’t have, the Bengals also extended a lengthy postseason drought for the Raiders (10-8). Las Vegas, which won its final four games to squeeze into the playoffs, last won in the postseason in the 2002 AFC championship game.
Cincinnati made it 4 for 4 on scoring drives late in the first half, though with some controversy. Burrow rolled right to avoid pressure and threw from close to the sideline. Play continued despite an erroneous whistle by an official, who thought Burrow stepped out of bounds. Boyd caught the 10-yard pass in the back of the end zone for a 20-6 lead. The play counted, to protests from the Raiders, who cited the rule that the ball should be returned to the previous spot.
And Las Vegas lost by seven points. “We just ran out of time today,” said interim coach Rich Bisaccia. “We did some uncharacteristic things with some penalties and gave up some drives and didn’t capitalize when we had it in the red zone at times. So it just didn’t go our way today.”
Daniel Carlson, the league’s top scorer, made a 47-yard field goal on the game’s opening possession, and the Bengals countered. And kept scoring, though mostly field goals. Burrow took Cincinnati 75 yards in 10 plays, connecting with C.J. Uzomah in the front of the end zone from the 7 to make it 7-3. Burrow threw for 65 yards on the drive and Uzomah celebrated his score with the Ickey Shuffle.
Then the Bengals’ defense stepped up with their sacks leader, Trey Hendrickson, stripping Carr of the ball. Defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi rumbled 11 yards with it to the Raiders 10, but Las Vegas held and McPherson made a 31-yard field goal.
The mistakes kept coming for the visitors. Peyton Barber touched a botched kickoff heading out of bounds at the Raiders 2, putting them in a hole. All-Pro punter A.J. Cole got off a 58-yarder, but Trent Taylor’s 14-yard return set up Cincinnati once more in prime position.
Ja’Marr Chase, who had nine receptions for 116 yards, kept victimizing the Raiders, his 38-yard reception getting the Bengals to the 6. McPherson made a 30-yarder for a 13-3 lead. It soon was 13-6 on Carlson’s 28-yard field goal.
Then came Boyd’s TD, followed by an impressive two-minute drill covering 80 yards for Las Vegas, capped by Carr’s 14-yard pass to Zay Jones that made it 20-13. McPherson, a fifthround draft pick last April, made two more second-half field goals, as did Carlson.
Carr finished 29 of 54 for 310 yards.