Inside The Nets Struggles Without Kevin Durant: 'This Isn't Last Year At All'
The Brooklyn Nets (27-16) were riding into the new year as the hottest team in the NBA. Just nine days later, the Nets learned they will be without their cornerstone for likely a month. Through the rough midseason adversity obstacle, the team remains confident they can stay afloat with Kevin Durant (MCL sprain) sidelined this time around.
After dropping their third straight loss to the 14th-seed San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night, Brooklyn has dipped to the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference standings. More importantly, the Nets haven't been able to pick up a win (excluding the contest Durant suffered the injury) since their biggest gun went down.
The team claims the three straight defeats haven't derailed their confidence, like last season when Durant went down with an MCL sprain. The catalyst for their calm composure is the difference inside the locker room. Most importantly, the group knows that everyone remains together.
"Last year, it was kind of a toxic environment," fourth-year big man Nic Claxton told reporters postgame. "We didn't know if everybody wanted to be here at the time.
"This year there's no divide between everybody that's out there. We're going to figure it out. We've just got to figure out how to play with each other without having KD, Kyrie [Irving] out there on the court. It's different lineups. But we'll figure it out."
While Durant was sidelined with an MCL sprain last season, the team slowly began to crumble. The Nets went 5-16 in his injury absence, tumbling from the second seed in the Eastern Conference standings down to the Play-In Bracket (eighth seed). In that troubled span, Brooklyn did not have Kyrie Irving as a full-time player due to his vaccination refusal and the City of New York's vaccination mandates.
Aside from falling to the eighth seed, disgruntled superstar James Harden requested his way out of the borough and headed down I-95 to the Philadelphia 76ers via a February blockbuster NBA trade deadline transaction.
To Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn, what happened last year strictly remains in the past. He was the lead assistant on the squad during that time under ex-head coach Steve Nash. Instead, he disclosed the major points that he relaid to his players after the disappointing defeat on Tuesday night at AT&T Center.
"The three things I said to our group [is] being extremely professional, being consistent, and that's your approach, that's your mindset - and no excuses," Vaughn stated. "I'm going to continue to preach that to the group. Not looking for any excuses. That's just who we are.
"I don't care about last year. I care about the now. [This] was the most important game. Now, I'm trying to reload and be ready for Phoenix. I'm not going to give them a chance to have excuses."
Irving, who was a late scratch from Tuesday's loss due to right calf soreness, echoed Claxton's remarks in his postgame comments to reporters in San Antonio. The superstar guard also emphasized that he doesn't want to hear any comparisons to Brooklyn's woeful stretch without Durant last season carrying over into today's struggles.
"I'm consistently in the lineup. That helps," Irving told reporters on-site in San Antonio postgame. "We also don't have halfway-in anyone in the locker room and there's a primary focus on the big picture here.
"It was all glory-glory last week when we were winning games every game, and now we're answering questions about potentially struggling. I don't think we are going to struggle without Kevin now. That's not my belief. I know guys in the locker room don't believe that. This isn't last year at all. So the comparisons have got to stop."
Brooklyn currently sits in the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference standings following the loss to San Antonio. The team is tied with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the fifth seed and trails the Sixers by half a game for the third seed.
