Kevin Durant Set for Injury Lay Off – How Will This Impact Brooklyn Nets?
The Brooklyn Nets, who are the big favorites in the race for the NBA title, have suffered something of a blow to their hopes. Key player Kevin Durant has suffered a knee injury that is likely to rule him out for a month or more, and this may well impact on their fortunes for the current season.
Durant sprained the MCL (Medial Collateral Ligament) during the Nets’ win over the New Orleans Pelicans, and now head coach Steve Nash will have to shuffle his pack and hope that they can stay up with the front runners in the Eastern Conference.
The Brooklyn Nets lead the sports betting when it comes to NBA futures betting; on https://www.sidelines.io the Barclays Center team is placed at (+275), leading the likes of the Golden State Warriors and last year’s winners, the Milwaukee Bucks. However, those odds may shift if Durant’s absence coincides with a drop in form.
Nash would have hoped that his dream three of Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden would be working their miracles courtside this season, but due to a number of factors, most notably Irving’s ban from playing home games due to his vaccination status, means that the trio has only played together twice all season.
To say that Durant is important to the Brooklyn Nets would perhaps be one of the biggest understatements in basketball. Over the course of the first 42 games of the season, the 33-year-old two-time NBA champion has top-scored for Nash’s team on 28 occasions, which is some feat.
On his inability to field all three in the same game, Nash commented;
“If they get a bunch of games together, great,”
“If they don’t, they don’t. And we’ll be playing the cards we’re dealt, so it’s a little bit out of our hands. We just have to do the best we can. We can’t cry about it. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We got to keep building, see what we can learn, how we can grow during this period of Kevin being out.”
And that’s a fairly sobering assessment. Clearly, Irving’s absence is self-enforced, and something of a bugbear Nash probably doesn’t want to touch. On the loss of Durant, he continued;
“Obviously, we lose a scorer of the highest caliber,”
“But we also lose size and defense. … He’s such a well-rounded player, does so many things at a high level, plus he gives us small-team size on the perimeter — there are so many ways that his absence will be felt. Having said that, it’s a great opportunity for guys, and it’s an opportunity for our team to grow. We can’t rely on him in ways that we could, and we have to find ways and solutions to be competitive without him.”
Any organization would miss a player of Durant’s abilities, but fortunately, the Nets have started the season strongly and can, therefore, perhaps afford to lose a little form in the coming weeks and still comfortably make it to the postseason without having to take part in the ‘play-in’ tournament.
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