As an unmistakable feeling of desperation closed in on the Nets, Coach Steve Nash reached towards the deepest recesses of his bench on Saturday and summoned a former star in twilight. Blake Griffin shed his warm-ups, together with some cobwebs, and reported to the scorer’s desk.
Griffin, 33, has a bum ankle and a surgically repaired knee that at a earlier stage of his profession — again when he was dunking over midsize sedans as one of many faces of the N.B.A. — had a full allotment of cartilage. However he had not caught a whiff of taking part in time in 21 days, relationship to the common season. Now, with the Nets trailing the Celtics in Sport 3 of their first-round playoff collection, Nash turned to Blake for one thing, something — a spark, a carry, possibly even a miracle.
The Nets have been prepared to take what they might get, and for just a few wonderful minutes at Barclays Heart, Griffin delivered. He sank a few 3-pointers. He grappled for rebounds. He even tried to defend Jayson Tatum because the Celtics hunted for favorable one-on-one matchups in opposition to him.
Miracles alone don’t win playoff collection, a lot much less championships. And whereas there was a time, not so way back, when the Nets have been celebrated as the most recent superteam that appeared sure for excellent issues, they’ve found the onerous method that titles can’t be store-bought or unexpectedly cobbled collectively after months of accidents and dysfunction.
“I simply felt like we didn’t have the appropriate spirit all through all the recreation,” Griffin stated after the Nets’ 109-103 loss, which pushed them to the brink of an early low season.
Boston, a group that has been ascendant beneath Ime Udoka, its first-year coach, can shut out the Nets with a collection sweep on Monday night time, and it’s possible solely a matter of time earlier than this one will get wrapped up regardless: No group in N.B.A. historical past has come again from a three-games-to-none collection deficit.
Except for that inconvenient fact, the Nets seem acutely conscious that the Celtics are a extra full, cohesive group. Simply take heed to them. Griffin cited the Celtics’ top-ranked protection. (“It is a nice defensive group,” he stated.) Kevin Durant cited their size. (“I simply assume they acquired extra measurement than us,” he stated.) And Nash cited their capability to drive to the basket. (“We haven’t been in a position to include the basketball,” he stated.) This isn’t a profitable method for the Nets.
On Saturday, the Nets supplied up loads of small moments that typified bigger issues. However think about certainly one of their last possessions, as Durant dribbled in opposition to the Celtics’ Grant Williams with the hope of making some area. Discovering none, Durant threw a bounce go to Kyrie Irving that was intercepted by Tatum, who raced away for a dunk that punctuated the win. It was the Nets’ twenty first and last turnover of the sport.
“Poor decision-making,” Nash stated. “Not connecting easy passes, they usually’re going the opposite method.”
The Celtics have smothered Durant, limiting him to 22 factors a recreation on 36.5 % capturing. On Saturday, he tried simply 11 subject objectives. His postgame information convention sounded vaguely like remedy.
“I’ve simply been pondering an excessive amount of, to be sincere, this entire collection,” he stated.
After capturing 4 of 17 from the sphere in Sport 2, Durant had come into Sport 3 wanting to seek out his teammates extra typically and “let the ball discover me” inside the circulation of the offense, he stated. However he was already questioning himself as he scrutinized one other depressing field rating in a collection filled with them.
“I most likely ought to’ve took extra pictures,” he stated, including: “In my thoughts, I’m simply attempting to see how I can assist all people. Generally, I find yourself taking myself out of the sport.”
Durant was not the one star who struggled. Irving shot 6 of 17 from the sphere and missed all seven of his 3-point makes an attempt. Nash blamed fatigue for a part of their woes. Irving is fasting for Ramadan. Durant has been supplying large minutes for weeks — first when the Nets have been scrambling to safe a spot within the postseason, and now as they attempt to survive in opposition to a superior opponent.
“They’ve each acquired to be drained,” Nash stated. “Fasting can’t be simple, you already know? If I am going play tennis and I haven’t eaten, I really feel like I’m going to fall over. So I can’t think about how he feels in an N.B.A. playoff recreation.”
On the similar time, the collection has supplied contrasting approaches to group constructing. The Celtics’ core is essentially made up of gamers whom they drafted and developed, a listing highlighted by Tatum and Jaylen Brown. That checklist additionally consists of Marcus Good, the N.B.A.’s defensive participant of the yr, and Robert Williams, the fourth-year middle who returned to the rotation on Saturday about three weeks after knee surgical procedure.
In that method, the Celtics are paying homage to contenders just like the Golden State Warriors and the Memphis Grizzlies, groups that developed continuity and chemistry by sticking with their younger gamers.
The Nets went the opposite method, buying high-priced stars like Durant and Irving whereas buying and selling away their draft picks and prospects. It was championship or bust from the beginning. Generally that experiment pans out. The Los Angeles Lakers, in any case, received the championship in 2020 by following an identical script. However that appears to be the exception as of late, and the Lakers have since crumbled right into a pile of very costly and growing older mud after mortgaging their future to attempt to win now. The Nets will not be far behind.
The Nets, after all, have had a very disjointed season, and even earlier than the beginning of Sport 3, Nash was rattling off an abridged checklist of the challenges his group had confronted: not having Irving for a lot of the season as a result of he refused to be vaccinated; buying and selling James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers; dropping Durant for six weeks due to a sprained ligament in his knee. Nash stated he was not making excuses, however …
“We’ve had only a few pockets with everybody in a position to play,” he stated.
At this level, they could have solely certainly one of them left.
