As Kyrie Irving remains unvaccinated, he’s restricted from playing in any NBA game or attending any practices with the team. Without him, Brooklyn has gone 2-3 in its first five games of the season. In every game so far except the battle against the Washington Wizards, the Nets have gotten off to a slow start offensively.
As a result, the team has only been able to average 102 points per game to start the year – A drastic change from last season, when the Nets put up 119 PPG, the second most in the league.
Having Kevin Durant and James Harden, two of the best scorers in the game, does help mitigate the load for the team, but the offense is still struggling during Irving’s absence.
Last season, the Duke product averaged 26.9 PPG on 51% shooting from the field. Irving dropped at least 30 points in fifteen games last season. Keep in mind, unlike Harden right now, Irving did not have to go through a long period of rehab.
Following a loss on Thursday to Miami, Durant opened up on how the team still misses the crafty guard.
“Yeah, we do miss Kyrie (Irving),” said the 33-year-old. “We do. He’s a part of our team. For the most part we’ve been generating great shots. We’ve been getting into the paint. It’s just a matter of us knocking them down. I think it’ll come.”
[vertical-gallery id=23306]
[mm-video type=video id=01fk26x4rxxed5hef2aj playlist_id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01eqbvq570kgj8vfs7 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01fk26x4rxxed5hef2aj/01fk26x4rxxed5hef2aj-ee9e15362065ccdf48f82f52ab39b7f9.jpg]