The Nets had been anticipating to vie for N.B.A. championships, and maybe some day they are going to. However that day isn’t now, and one other abbreviated postseason look ended on Monday when the Boston Celtics defeated them, 116-112, to finish a four-game sweep of their first-round playoff collection.
It was a becoming finale to a disjointed season for the seventh-seeded Nets, who spent months biking via a motley forged of characters. They had been undone by accidents and absences, by a mishmash roster that would not unearth a coherent model of basketball, and, lastly, by a superior opponent that put its suffocating clamps on two of the planet’s finest gamers.
The Celtics produced the league’s top-ranked protection within the common season, and so they proved it was no fluke towards Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Ime Udoka, the Celtics’ first-year coach, was considered one of Coach Steve Nash’s assistants in Brooklyn final season, and he utilized his institutional information all through the collection.
Subsequent up for the second-seeded Celtics is the winner of the first-round collection between the Chicago Bulls and the Milwaukee Bucks. The defending champion Bucks have a three-games-to-one lead getting into Sport 5 of their collection on Wednesday.
The Nets, who had the second-highest payroll within the league this season, will attempt to recalibrate. Nash, who was employed by the Nets in 2020 with none head teaching expertise, has now presided over two early postseason exits. (The Nets misplaced to the Bucks within the Japanese Convention semifinals final season.) Irving, who can develop into an unrestricted free agent, has mentioned that he intends to re-sign with the crew. However he appeared in solely 29 regular-season video games this season due to his refusal to be vaccinated towards the coronavirus.
The season was additionally interrupted by a midseason commerce with the Philadelphia 76ers, who acquired James Harden in alternate for a package deal that included Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and draft picks. Simmons arrived in Brooklyn with a balky again and mentioned he had been coping with psychological well being points for months. He by no means appeared in uniform.
As for the Harden experiment, it was a bust. Harden, Durant and Irving performed collectively in simply 16 video games over two seasons, together with the playoffs.
Earlier than Sport 4, Nash mirrored on the Nets’ tumultuous season and spun it ahead, saying it had made the crew “higher” and “stronger.”
“We took the problem and all of us grew from it,” he mentioned. “And sooner or later, these challenges will afford us quite a bit. We hope that we don’t must face so many going ahead, although.”
Durant missed 21 video games after spraining his knee in January, then performed heavy minutes late within the common season because the crew scrambled for a spot within the play-in match. After Durant tried simply 11 subject targets towards the Celtics in Sport 3, Nash acknowledged that fatigue might have performed a job.
“Kevin’s needed to play 40-plus minutes for five-plus weeks after lacking six, seven weeks,” he mentioned, including, “I’m positive that’s taken an enormous toll.”
And there have been the crew’s extremely publicized absences. Simmons watched the primary three video games of the collection from the bench in avenue garments. Harden now performs in Philadelphia. And Joe Harris, one of many crew’s finest shooters, had a bone particle faraway from his left ankle in November. When his rehabilitation had a setback, he underwent one other surgical process in March that ended his season.
Towards the Celtics, the Nets missed Harris’s size on protection alongside together with his capacity to stretch the ground as a 3-point menace. Consequently, the Celtics may very well be much more aggressive about sticking a number of defenders on Durant every time he touched the ball.
The collection itself was a swift descent into futility. After the Celtics’ Jayson Tatum gained Sport 1 with a buzzer-beating layup, Irving used a number of profanities to explain his interactions with followers who had been sitting courtside in Boston. (The N.B.A. subsequently fined Irving $50,000 for making obscene gestures.) After the Nets acquired thumped in Sport 2, Irving heaped reward on the Celtics’ younger core, telling reporters that “their time is now.” And after he struggled in Sport 3, Durant sounded baffled at his postgame information convention. What may he probably do to maintain the collection alive? He didn’t have any speedy options.
“Perhaps shoot extra, perhaps be smarter,” he mentioned in a gradual monotone. “Catch the ball nearer to the rim. Play sooner. Catch and shoot extra.”
Durant mentioned he would attempt to “determine it out” by finding out extra movie forward of Sport 4.
Now, the Nets have a whole summer time to seek for solutions.
