Nets Without Eight Players vs. Pacers, Including Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving

The Brooklyn Nets have been heavily monitoring several players minutes over the last two weeks. On Saturday morning, the team made the call to have a heavy rest day.

Heading into Saturday night’s game against the Indiana Pacers in Indiana — a second game of a back-to-back —Brooklyn will have nearly more players in street clothes on the bench than available to play.

The team has ruled Nic Claxton (right hamstring tightness), Seth Curry (left ankle - injury management), Kevin Durant (right knee - injury management), Joe Harris (left ankle - injury management), Kyrie Irving (left adductor tightness), Royce O'Neale (personal reasons), Ben Simmons (left knee/calf - injury management), and T.J. Warren (left foot - injury management) all out for Brooklyn.

After Friday’s contest vs. Hawks, Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn was non-committal on whether Durant, who logged a total of 36 minutes vs. Atlanta, bringing his season total (a league-high) to 994 minutes, will rest against Indiana.

“The minutes are adding up. We’ll always be smart in terms of short term, long term,” said Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn on Durant’s minutes load. “I’ll see how they [KD & Royce O’Neale] come from this game. If we can get through tomorrow, the schedule’s in our favor to get a little break.”

Durant’s rest day will mark the first game he has missed so far this season. The 34-year-old superstar disclosed that he and Vaughn have held strong dialogue on managing his high minutes load, explaining he’s confident the team has the best interest at heart for him.

“I just listen. I try to do everything,” said Durant on the dialogue between himself and Vaughn when it comes to discussing his high minutes load. “They’ve got my best interest at heart so I just listen to what they say and go with it.”

Kyrie Irving, who is averaging 36.7 minutes across his 18 games played, explained his target range in mind for his minutes load during the 2022-23 NBA season on Friday night. He too will take the game off with rest.

“My minutes are pretty solidified over the last few games so if I can stay between 32 and 35, 36 minutes even though I played 39 tonight, I would like that for the rest of the regular season,” said Irving on his minutes load. “But some games we're gonna go with feel, me and Jacque have been talking about it so we got a good dialogue.”

On the other hand, the matchup will be a big opportunity for many younger Nets to take advantage of. For who is indeed available for Brooklyn: Cam Thomas, Kessler Edwards, David Duke Jr., Patty Mills, Markieff Morris, Day’Ron Sharpe, Edmond Sumner, Yuta Watanabe, and Alondes Williams.