The actual method to save Kevin Durant’s legs for the tip of the season is to finish his evening early towards lesser opponents.
As evidenced by the Nets’ meltdown of their 122-116 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday, that’s a lot simpler mentioned than executed.
The Nets had been on tempo to present Durant a half-day. They led by 23 within the second quarter, largely attributable to Seth Curry’s scorching capturing towards his hometown crew and Kyrie Irving’s aggressive scoring towards Terry Rozier, his understudy on the Boston Celtics who now performs a key function in Charlotte.
The Nets blew the Hornets out of the water within the first half. The recreation was presupposed to be over.
And then they took their foot off the fuel. They left Durant on the bench far too lengthy, then misplaced these minutes whereas he watched from the sidelines. This is the opposite facet of the Durant workload conundrum: Yes he leads the NBA in minutes; sure, he’s 34 years previous in his fifteenth NBA season; sure, he’s 4 seasons faraway from a devastating ruptured Achilles; and sure, the Nets wish to be sure he’s wholesome and recent for the playoffs.
But when he doesn’t play, the Nets battle.
The Hornets turned Brooklyn’s 23-point lead right into a one-point recreation till Durant checked again in halfway by means of the fourth quarter.
“Overall, it was one of those games where we jumped out to a lead,” head coach Jacque Vaughn mentioned after the sport. “They’re a NBA team and a well-coached team that would continue to fight back and we relaxed a little bit and kind of paid for it. Good thing we have some pretty good players to execute at the end of the game, which we did for the most part. I love that piece of it. But we just got to comfortable and started to let them get where they want to, to the rim and to the paint, too many times.”
After scoring 20 by means of the primary three intervals, Durant scored 9 extra down the stretch to safe the victory, giving the Nets its eighth win of their final 11 video games.
For the primary half of the evening, the sport plan labored. The Nets went deep into their rotation — and so they took care of enterprise towards a non-playoff opponent.
Until they took their foot off the fuel.
“I mean, they’re pros. Like, I know we got high expectations for us, especially when we’re up, but they’ve got guys that put numbers up on the board in the NBA before on that team, so we’ve got to respect them for that as well,” mentioned Durant. “I know we should have kept the lead, but you’ve still got to respect them as NBA players. But I like our intensity. I like how we came out on the offensive side of the ball and moved the ball pretty much controlled the whole game.”
While the Hornets had been with out franchise cornerstone LaMelo Ball (ankle) and oft-injured star Gordon Hayward (shoulder), the Nets are developing on a totally wholesome 10-man rotation. Ben Simmons (calf pressure) and Yuta Watanabe (hamstring pressure) are the one key rotation gamers who missed Wednesday’s recreation.
Early on, it was an excessive amount of for the Hornets to deal with. Even with out Simmons and Watanabe, the Nets flexed the depth they hope can carry them — each in video games Durant sits out and minutes he watches from the bench.
Durant did his harm early. On one possession, he crossed over Charlotte’s Kelly Oubre Jr. and drove to the the rim together with his proper hand earlier than ending with an emphatic two-handed stuff.
And on different possessions, he did nothing in any respect. His teammates picked up the place he left off.
Three Nets scored 20 or extra, with Curry coming off the bench to hold 20 factors on his hometown crew. Irving scored a game-high 33 factors. Even although all 5 Hornets’ starters scored in double figures, Charlotte acquired near nothing from its bench. Curry outscored the Hornets’ reserves on his personal.
Not to say the atrocious Hornets’ protection let Nets’ gamers stroll to the rim uncontested usually.
The Nets, although, want to search out methods to play first half basketball within the second half. It’s the distinction between Durant enjoying his common of 37 minutes a recreation and enjoying 25.
Those minutes will add up on the finish of the season. When the playoffs come round, he’ll be on the courtroom a minimal of 40 minutes an evening.
“Sizable lead, we took our foot off the gas pedal, but you’ve gotta give them credit,” Irving mentioned. “They definitely came out, hit us in the mouth in the second half. They were playing with a lot of confidence. And for us, it wasn’t so much just about the Charlotte Hornets. It’s about us establishing our defensive principles and again, we had a chance to do that tonight and we gave up the lead. On nights like this, you feel great winning, but how we won, we definitely want to improve on that.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com