The Brooklyn Nets “big three” is now just a lone star.
James Harden injured his hamstring in game one, and in last night’s game four loss, Kyrie Irving went down with an ankle injury that will withhold him from the lineup for game five.
If you ask former Celtic Glenn Davis, he felt it was “karma” for Irving’s shoe drag across the Celtic’s logo during the last series.
Whether or not it is karma is for you to decide, but the main takeaway from game four is that Kevin Durant needs to carry the Nets by himself until reinforcements return.
With Irving in the lineup, the Milwaukee Bucks defense was not able to key in on Durant, and the Nets actually led by 11 at one point. After Irving left, the Nets collapsed. Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo thrived scoring 34, and the Nets seemingly lost all ability to score and are no longer a lock to make it to the NBA Finals.
Durant managed to score 28 points, but had a horrible night efficiency wise. He shot 36% from the field and 12.5% from three. This was largely in part due to former Longhorn, P.J. Tucker, who was an absolute menace to Durant all game holding him to nine points when he guarded him.
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Tucker also added 13 points in game four, which is more than he scored in the first few games as he had only totaled up nine points in the first three games of the series.
In the series against the Celtics, Durant, Harden and Irving averaged 85.2 points, 21.0 rebounds and 16.4 assists. Subtracting his fellow two stars means the Durant and the Nets need to make up for losing 46 points, something that has been proving to be extremely difficult. Durant is averaging 31 points per game, and now after the injuries, Joe Harris is the second leading scorer averaging 12 points per game.
The Bucks had no issue clamping Durant and the rest of the team as, besides Irving who left the game early, not a single other player scored in double digits for the Nets.
Offense was supposed to be the strength of the Nets, to make up for the putrid defense, but now they lost their identity. Durant is not a slouch by any means, and is one of the top five players in the world, but he will certainly need to turn his performance around in order to survive this series.