Nets

Last summer on vacation, James Harden told Kevin Durant he planed to sign an extension to stay with the Nets. Didn't exactly turn out that way.

Harden reportedly was frustrated with the Nets in general, Irving’s part-time status, and the scoring load he had to take on because Durant missed time due to an injury. Not so much with Harden, although maybe at the time he and Durant talked last summer Harden believed he was staying long term. Through all of that, Irving was frustrated but never asked for a trade, and according to Murdock’s reported Irving and Durant grew closer as friends this season.

During this 13-game stretch, he's averaging 7.0 assists (5.8 pre-injury) and helped guide Brooklyn to the NBA's second-ranked offense (119.8 offensive rating).

Oversaturated defensive attention is his accomplice in the slicing and dicing of opponents. He’s rewarding finishers like Brown and Claxton for properly filling the lanes on the break and bolting down the floor. They absolutely deserve credit for their performance as of late, and Durant is simplifying their roles offensively to augment what they bring. Rarely, if ever, is he spooked by a throng of defenders and fellow Nets are reaping the benefits. In Brooklyn’s 113-111 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on March 16, Durant faced doubles virtually all night. Who exactly makes the final cut for the playoff (play-in?) rotation doesn’t feel solidified yet. Since debuting post-injury on March 3, that malleability has arrived in the form of brilliant playmaking. For a player whose playoff foibles in Oklahoma City sometimes appeared to stem from a rigid approach, Durant’s malleability is shining brightly with the Nets. Attacking downhill, he’s flourished finding dudes in the dunker spot, delivering laydown passes and hitting rollers in-stride. With masterful scoring, dishing and defending in various ways, he nearly pushed the eventual champs to elimination. Not only has the superstar forward smoothly leaned into heightened facilitating duties, he’s doing so across an array of situations: transition, ball screens, post-ups and drives. When Irving’s available, Durant lets the supernova scorer rock and embraces a little more playmaking.

SportsLine's computer model just revealed its NBA picks today for Milwaukee Bucks vs. Brooklyn Nets.

- Bucks vs. Bucks? And which side of the spread hits in well over 50 percent of simulations? The model also says one side of the spread hits in well over 50 percent of simulations. The Nets bury 35.7 percent of 3-point attempts, and no team in the NBA allows more 3-pointers per game (14.3) than the Bucks. Brooklyn is also in the top six of the NBA in field-goal percentage and 3-point percentage, with Milwaukee ranking in the bottom tier of the league in turnover creation and blocked shots. On defense, Brooklyn holds opponents to 45.3 percent shooting, a top-10 figure in the NBA, and that includes a 34.7 percent clip on 3-point attempts. On the opposite end, the Nets are prolific, but Milwaukee is strong on defense, yielding 110.5 points per 100 possessions. The Bucks are elite in offensive efficiency, scoring 1.14 points per possession. Before you make any NBA predictions with the Bucks vs. Now, the model has set its sights on Bucks vs. Now, here are several NBA odds and betting lines for Nets vs. The Brooklyn Nets host the Milwaukee Bucks in a battle between Eastern Conference stalwarts on Thursday. Brooklyn is 28-19 against the East this season with a 40-36 overall record. Caesars Sportsbook lists Brooklyn as a two-point home favorite, and tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET. The total number of points Vegas thinks will be scored, or the Over-Under, is 243.5 in the latest Bucks vs.

Giannis Antetokounmpo surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the team scoring lead with 18 seconds left in regulation and hit the winning free throws in OT.

But the Nets closed on a 15-5 run in the closing 3:36 of the first quarter to take a 30-23 lead into the second quarter. He got a breather at the 4:49 mark, but the Bucks couldn’t quite get over the hump until he returned for the final 79 seconds and finished with that slam. Wes, it feels like he hit some big shots and Jrue with a big putback to start the overtime and a couple other plays, but yeah, Giannis, just again, special. He scored 13 points in the quarter, carrying his team while the Bucks continued to struggle offensively. I know it looked bad and we don't want anybody to be hurt but I don't want him to have it. As Brown lifted off, Middleton hooked his left arm, turning Brown horizontal in the air and causing a hard foul. It was enough to offset the fact Durant was the court for the Nets (40-37), who fell to 32-18 when he played regardless of lineup around him. He wanted to hit the free throws before he was the free throw shooter he is now. Matthews and Bobby Portis scored off offensive rebounds and Holiday added a pair of free throws to set up Antetokounmpo’s clutch three over Drummond. Afterward he was asked about defending Giannis Antetokounmpo, as the Milwaukee Bucks were headed in to play the Nets at Barclays Center Thursday night. "I think guys are feeling it now...what it takes to win a game. Antetokounmpo made 13 of his 21 shots and pulled down 14 rebounds in the victory.

If the Milwaukee Bucks had more respect for Bruce Brown's offensive ability, the Brooklyn Nets might have been NBA champions.

But the Nets are not talking like an underdog hoping for a puncher’s chance of making a deep playoff run. “This is a great test for us to see where we’re at,” guard Patty Mills said before tipoff. Durant missed the last meeting during a 21-game absence with a sprained MCL. Being in the league, it’s kind of a little disrespectful, for sure.” Brook Lopez, who drew Brown during the playoff series, missed that game for the Bucks but was set to play at Barclays Center on Thursday. The outcome weighed on Brown’s mind, “Probably the whole summer,” the defense-first Brown said.

This week on The Crossover, Chris Mannix and Howard Beck dive into the ripple effects of the Robert Williams III injury and how it might impact the Celtics' ...

They have been dealing with a Nets team, up until now, that has been two different versions of the Nets. There’s the home version with no Kyrie and the road version with Kyrie. They’re still waiting on Ben Simmons. Ben Simmons might get healthy before the end of the season, in which case now you’re plugging in a really important player who has never played a minute or even practiced a minute with this team. But the volatility, if you look at all the teams that we would consider contenders because of their talent, and then you consider all the caveats you would put there, the volatility, the Nets have more volatility than anyone, and have all season, right? That’ll give them a nice run before the playoffs, of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving together, home and road for the first time all season. So it’s not to downplay the potency of the Nets with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. It’s not to downplay Kevin Durant, period. And we’ve seen each of these guys just to have monster games on their own and in tandem. Listen, in the abstract, if you just said, Hey, here’s a bunch of teams and here’s their two best players.

All things considered, the Brooklyn Nets should consider themselves fortunate to have gotten a player of Ben Simmons' caliber in exchange for James Harden.

Ideally, when a new key player is introduced to a lineup, a coach will give himself a 15-to-20 game grace period to figure out rotations, allow the troops to build chemistry and truly get a grasp on what it is they like to run. Brooklyn is in a bit of a conundrum. The same can be said of a first-round playoff series in which the Nets know they would be facing even stiffer competition should they advance. Knowing that there’s a bigger picture at stake in Brooklyn, the Nets at some point will need to be responsible and rule Simmons out. The lack of clarity with Kyrie Irving, it is believed, had a lot to do with Harden’s unhappiness in Brooklyn in the first place. Entering play on March 30, the Nets have just six games remaining in the regular season, and there’s quite a bit at stake.

This battle in Brooklyn features a vastly different Nets team from the first go-round, with Kyrie Irving now allowed to play in all home games with the vaccine ...

ESPN+ 30 For 30 Steve Nash continues to ride his players though, with Durant (recently off an injury remember) playing 39 minutes in Tuesday’s win over the Pistons. This was after playing the entire second half of a B2B on Sunday against the Hornets. Sheesh. Grayson Allen came off the bench against Philly, with Wes Matthews replacing him in the starting lineup. The principle figure, Ben Simmons, has remained out since then though with a back injury that looks like it could keep him out even for the Playoffs. Kevin Durant is back though, and with Irving available for all games, they’re nestled snugly into the Play-in teams. We also got our first glimpse at Grayson Allen off the bench against Philly. I’m curious if Bud will do the same here... For the first time since the opening night of the season, we should get to see the Milwaukee Bucks and the Brooklyn Nets face off at near full strength.

Kevin Durant missed game-winning shots at the end of regulation and overtime on Thursday night as the Nets could not recover from a blown nine-point lead in ...

Brown said the 17-point and 18-attempt disparity impacted the game “a lot,” but declined to go any further because he is “not taking that fine” for criticizing officials. Brown began the day saying he felt it was “disrespectful” of the Bucks to essentially give him uncontested perimeter looks in the playoffs last year and provided his proof of improvement by reaching 20 points for the third time this season. But it all evaporated quickly, capped by Antetokounmpo knocking down a 3-pointer to tie the score at 110-110 with 18 seconds remaining to send the game to overtime. Brown slowed down as if preparing for an emphatic dunk, which allowed a hustling Khris Middleton to catch up and hammer the airborne Brown on the wrist. Peeved that the call wasn’t reviewed for a possible “reckless” flagrant, Durant said, “I’m hurt. But when it comets to the MVP chants, two-time MVP and defending NBA champion Giannis Antetokounmpo must have thought the crowd was calling for him.

A few months later, Harden said he wanted to be patient with his decision, then a few months after that he basically forced a trade.

It worked out for the best for both sides, really, with the Sixers getting the Simmons mess off their plate, so who really cares what Harden told Durant in Greece. That was then. And frankly, I think it's better for the Nets. I would not want to give Harden a max extension at this point in his career, and Simmons fits pretty perfectly next to Durant and Irving while filling a defensive hole Harden only made bigger. In fact, he looked almost incapable of doing many of the things we'd grown accustomed to him doing on the court. Hours before the 2022 trade deadline, Harden was dealt to the 76ers in exchange for a packaged headlined by Ben Simmons. Harden came back in Game 5 and played the rest of the series like he had a spike stuck in his leg, but he wasn't close to right and Brooklyn was eliminated. In the 2021 playoffs, Harden ripped his hamstring 43 seconds into Game 1 of the conference semifinals against the Milwaukee Bucks. Then Irving went down with a sprained ankle in Game 4 and missed the remainder of the series.

In the final regular season game against a title-contender, the Brooklyn Nets fell just short of a needed win but it was a preview of what could come in the ...

In that span, the Bucks built a four-point lead (96-92) resulting in Durant checking in on a short breather. In fact, the biggest lead that Milwaukee was able to carve out was in the fourth quarter when the Bucks led by just 6 at the 8-minute mark. In the final two minutes, Wes Matthews found away to secure the board after a free throw, and here, Bobby Portis cleans up a missed Giannis Antetokounmpo layup with just under two minutes to spare. So yes, while the Bucks didn’t “dominate” the Nets on Thursday night, they did, however, win on the margins — much like they did in last year’s postseason — by patrolling the glass, taking advantage of fastbreak opportunities, and playing with physicality. In the final seconds of the frame, Milwaukee took the lead. Irving, who was quiet in the first half, nailed a pair of triples and Brown cashed his 3-Pointer of the contest to help absorb Antetokounmpo’s dominance under the basket to open the frame. After a Curry triple, the Nets manned an early 10-4 lead with 7:09 left in the first period. I think technically, I have to be in the air and if I come down on his foot, then that’s the flagrant. After a sequence where both teams couldn’t buy a bucket, Nic Claxton (11 points, eight rebounds, an assists, two steals, and a block) hit one of two free throws to trim the deficit to two. Milwaukee forged a 7-0 run that included a huge 3-pointer by Giannis Antetokounmpo (game-high 44 points, 14 rebounds, six assists, one steal, and eight turnovers) with 18.0 seconds left to knot the contest at 110. With the loss, Brooklyn falls to 40-37 on the season while Milwaukee rises to 48-27. Despite Khris Middleton getting ejected at the 5:05 mark of the fourth after a Flagrant 2 foul committed on Bruce Brown (season-high 23 points, five rebounds, three assists, one steal, and three blocks) during a fast break, the Bucks didn’t go away easily.

Do what you gotta. On Tuesday night, the Brooklyn Nets played host to the Detroit Pistons at Barclays Center. The Nets did their usual fall behind by a ...

Andre Drummond will be first up to go against the Big Disney. Drummond has steadily improved in each game with the Nets and is a key part of their plans for the stretch run. Steve Nash and the Nets staff will look to make their adjustments and make life tough on the big guys. Antetokuonmpo does everything for the Bucks and will look to bulldoze the Nets on the inside. He missed the last Bucks matchup so it’ll be interesting to see how Mike Budenholzer and the Bucks staff adjust to the challenge. Brooklyn’s three point shooting has been down in the dumps the past two games, so they might make it more of a point to attack the basket tonight. KD got this three point stroke back in gear on Tuesday and continued his mastery of the mid post. On Tuesday night, the Brooklyn Nets played host to the Detroit Pistons at Barclays Center. The Nets did their usual fall behind by a bunch routine, but also did their usual clean up act in the second half and came away with an important victory. Since the All Star break, Milwaukee has allowed teams to shoot 69.1 percent on shots inside of the restricted area, third highest in the NBA. When the Nets are at the best, they are using the whole court to create open looks for themselves. The last time Kyrie Irving saw the Bucks in Barclays Center, he was helping open up a can of whoop ass that had the Bucks as down as 49 points. And on a somewhat related note, I’m a few chapters into Mirin Fader’s book about Giannis, and it is incredible. Currently, they are eighth, a half-game ahead of the Hornets (who own the tiebreaker) and two games behind the Cavaliers who lost to the Mavs Wednesday but held an impromptu reunion of a very special team... The Bucks don’t have time to rest long as they’ve got a home date with the Los Angeles Clippers tomorrow night.