NETS MISS DAILY THEIR SHOT
Fail to gain on Sixers with loss to lowly Raptors
The Nets are navigating the end of this season with a limited roster, with James Harden out indefinitely and Kevin Durant perpetually working himself back.
It’s easy to toss away the final month as meaningless. But there is some significance to the results, no matter how much they downplay the end of this funky, injury-plagued season.
The Nets entered Wednesday night’s 114103 loss to the Raptors just ½ game below the Sixers for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. With Philadelphia falling at the same time to the red-hot Suns, the Nets missed an opportunity to leapfrog the Sixers.
Why is this important beyond the pride and optics of winning the No. 1 seed? The Nets have been much better at home (23-7) than on the road (16-13). The same home-road discrepancy holds for the Sixers, who are 22-7 in Philly, and 17-12 elsewhere.
If there’s a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals, the difference could be its location – Wells Fargo Center or Barclays Center. The Nets, with their glut of injuries, aren’t in a good position to catch Philly. But it’s certainly possible, especially with news that Durant is a strong possibility to return by the weekend. So it’s a goal. Just not the top one. “Anytime you could lock up a No. 1 seed, it’s a good thing. It’s not out of our reach,” Blake Griffin said. “It’s not the end-all-be-all, either. So we’re going to be smart. We’re not going to force guys to play and play injured. We want guys healthy for the playoffs. So that’s the goal. There are bigger goals along with that as well.”
In other words, health over seeding. Which is smart.
But against the Raptors on Wednesday night, the Nets ran out of steam and talent. They held a 13-point advantage after the first quarter, then a 2-point lead at the break. Toronto took control in the third quarter and never gave up the lead, even when the Nets made a mini-run near the finish.
Part of it was just bad timing. The Nets were playing on a second night of a back-to-back, still reeling from injuries. The Raptors have been an utter disappointment this season, a development that could be excused by their pandemic-forced relocation from Canada to Florida. But they’ve won four straight and flaunted a full-force squad Wednesday, with Pascal Siakam returning from a two-game absence to play next to a Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet.
The Nets, on the other hand, were again shorthanded, undermanned, short-staffed, however you want to classify their seemingly season-long status. Kyrie Irving was again sensational with 28 points, 11 boards and eight assists, but got little help after Bruce Brown off the bench.
Coach Steve Nash explained the struggles of Landry Shamet – who shot an abysmal 3-for-17 – by claiming tired legs.
“It’s a lot. It’s a guy that hasn’t been playing this many minutes not consecutively playing a lot of minutes. It takes it’s toll,” Nash said. “There’s gonna be a bump in the road at some point. It just looked like he couldn’t quite get the ball in the basket.”
The Nets were up to 10 healthy players, one higher than the night prior. It forced Griffin to not only play on the second night of a back-toback, but also start at power forward. Griffin logged just 19 minutes with nine points.
“It’s not ideal, but with the amount of healthy bodies we talked it over and we decided (Griffin should play),” Nash said. “He’s wanted to play in the back-to-backs. We’re going to see how it goes and hopefully we try to limit his minutes but it’s a difficult thing to do in practice, but we definitely don’t want to overexpose him on his first back-to-back in a long time.”
Nash knew it was tough matchup. At least his team didn’t lose any ground in the race for first. Or more importantly, it didn’t sustain any more injuries.