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      It’s a New Series as the Injury Bug Returns to Bite the Nets

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      The Bucks tied their playoff series with the Nets, 2-2, as Kyrie Irving left with an injured ankle, joining James Harden on the Brooklyn sideline.MILWAUKEE — When the Nets settled into their hotel in the city’s Historic Third Ward last week, their 2-0 series cushion against the hometown Bucks looked especially cushy. A lead that reached as high as 49 points in the Nets’ Game 2 rout — without the injured James Harden — had the entire N.B.A. discouraged.By the time the Nets flew back home on Sunday night, after a second consecutive road defeat and the loss of another superstar, they were abruptly forced to contemplate the possibility that fielding a full-strength team is a luxury this season might never afford, no matter how lavishly the roster reads.Kyrie Irving’s right foot bent sharply in Sunday’s second quarter after he converted a layup and came down on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s right foot. Antetokounmpo had positioned himself for a rebound but left little landing space, and Irving was soon ruled out for the rest of the game with a sprained right ankle. It all meant that Kevin Durant would have to try to keep up with the emboldened Bucks alongside a rather limited supporting cast, while Harden stood throughout the game to shout instructions from the bench in street clothes.Nets guard Kyrie Irving grabbed his leg after being injured in the second quarter. Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMilwaukee predictably pulled away for a 107-96 Game 4 victory that evened this best-of-seven, second-round series at two games apiece and which, coupled with the uncertainty of Irving’s status, erased any notion of comfort that the Nets once felt. Irving left Fiserv Forum on crutches and with his right foot in a walking boot after X-rays were negative, according to a person briefed on Irving’s status but unauthorized to discuss it publicly.“It was a big adjustment tonight to play without him and James,” Nets Coach Steve Nash said, referring to Irving and Harden. “But we’ve had that type of year.”Even by the standards of this injury-laden Nets season, in which Durant, Irving and Harden have scarcely been able to play together since Harden arrived in a four-team trade in mid-January, Sunday afternoon’s events had the jarring feel of a new low. That was the unavoidable takeaway without even factoring in the fire alarm after the final buzzer that forced all arena occupants, including both teams, to be evacuated for what the Bucks termed “precautionary reasons.”The Nets’ original aim for this Milwaukee trip was to win at least one game and set up Game 5 on Tuesday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn as a closeout opportunity, enabling Harden to essentially take the series off after aggravating a right hamstring injury in the opening minute of Game 1. With the series now tied, in what was billed in many corners as a matchup that could well produce the N.B.A.’s next champion, Nash found himself fielding questions about the urge to restore Harden to the lineup on Tuesday.“I think it’s an independent case,” Nash said, swatting down the idea that Irving’s prognosis would influence Harden’s timetable. “I don’t want James to be rushed back.”The other factor, beyond Irving’s setback, that prompted such questions: Milwaukee had begun to cause problems even before Irving’s exit and looked a lot more like the team that swept the Miami Heat in the first round. Antetokounmpo had the standout box-score line with 34 points and 12 rebounds, but P.J. Tucker was the Bucks’ unquestioned spark, easing the pressure (at least temporarily) on the Bucks’ under-fire coach, Mike Budenholzer. After scoring just 9 points in the first three games of the series, Tucker sank three 3-pointers from the corner, his well-chronicled favorite spot, and finished with 13 points and 7 rebounds.He might have been even more effective at the other end, imposing his physicality on Durant in precisely the manner the Bucks envisioned when they acquired him from Houston in a March trade. Durant led the Nets with 28 points and 13 rebounds but needed 25 shots to reach his scoring total. When Tucker was the primary defender, Durant shot 3 for 12.Hounded by the Bucks’ P.J. Tucker, the Nets’ Kevin Durant led the Nets with 28 points but needed 25 shots to reach his total.Jeff Hanisch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersDuring a verbal confrontation between Tucker and Durant in Milwaukee’s narrow Game 3 victory, Antjuan Lambert, a personal security guard for Durant who was hired by the Nets when they signed him, came onto the court and shoved Tucker. The Nets were notified on Saturday that Lambert had been barred by the league office from any further on-court involvement in the series.Sunday actually brought a positive start for the Nets, with Jeff Green being cleared to make his series debut after missing the first three games with a left plantar fascia strain. Green immediately drew a charge upon entering the game late in the first quarter, putting Antetokounmpo in early foul trouble, but the Nets’ hopeful vibe was soon doused by the sight of Irving hobbling to the locker room after he spent several minutes on the floor recovering from the painful landing.When the Nets finally surrendered in the fourth quarter, pulling Durant with 4 minutes 28 seconds remaining and the hosts leading by 99-84, Milwaukee’s crowd, which included the Wisconsin native J.J. Watt of the Arizona Cardinals, broke into a “Bucks in six” chant.You’d have struggled to find anyone, with or without local ties, who believed that outcome would be possible after Milwaukee’s humbling 125-86 defeat at Barclays Center last Monday in Game 2. In these playoffs, though, injuries continue to wield the largest influence. Health woes for star players were unrelenting throughout the second half of a harried regular season conducted in pandemic conditions — and remain so.Remember the warning we got from Philadelphia 76ers Coach Doc Rivers at the start of the second round?“It’s going to be the battle of the fittest by the end of this thing,” Rivers said. He was unsure at the time how well his star center, Joel Embiid, would fare trying to play through a slight meniscus tear in his right knee in the 76ers’ second-round series against Atlanta.Embiid, for now, is thriving. For the Nets and especially Durant? Suddenly nothing is slight about their shortage of playmakers or the load he’ll have to carry. More

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      Bucks Slow Down Nets to Trim Series Lead to 2-1

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      A grinding game of defense allowed Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton to shine in a 86-83 win over the Nets.To get a much needed win on Thursday, the Milwaukee Bucks did the opposite of what got the team so far in the playoffs: They slowed down their play.It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t terribly efficient. But it was enough to let their stars, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, break through.In a throwback game that would have seemed at home in the 2000s, the Bucks squeezed out a victory Thursday night over the Nets, 86-83, and narrowed Brooklyn’s lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal series to two games to one.For the Bucks, it was an admirable recovery from their Game 2 performance, when the Nets thumped them by 39 points.This time, the Bucks crawled to victory.During the regular season, the Bucks were fast — second in pace only to the Washington Wizards. On Thursday night, the Bucks generated offense by giving the ball to Antetokounmpo and Middleton. They either isolated them one-on-one or created shots through grinding screen-and-rolls to get near the basket. Throughout the game, the Bucks had only seven fast break points. During the regular season, they averaged 14.5, good for fourth in the N.B.A.“Personally, I enjoy fast paced, finding my teammates for a lot of 3’s, high-scoring game, obviously. But at the end of the day, it was a very low-scoring game,” Antetokounmpo said.The slower pace allowed the team to get the ball to Antetokounmpo and Middleton, who have seven All Star appearances between them, and get out of the way. They combined to score 68 of Milwaukee’s 86 points. The duo played almost the entire game. Antetokounmpo shot 14 for 31 from the field (45.1 percent) and Middleton was 12 for 25 (48 percent).Most of their damage was done in the opening period, when the Bucks led by as many as 21 points, with the home arena at the Fiserv Forum at their backs. Antetokounmpo and Middleton scored all of the Bucks 30 points in the first period, and Milwaukee entered the second period leading, 30-11.“I think there was a little bit of setting the tone,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the game. “Those two guys having a big first quarter, they’re our leaders. They’ve been here a long time. They’ve been through a lot together.”He added: “It doesn’t matter how you do it at this time of year. You just have to find a way to get it done.”Yet the Nets quickly recovered in the second quarter. The Nets even took the lead in the fourth period on a Kevin Durant 3-pointer with 1:23 left in regulation. But a Middleton layup stanched the bleeding, and his free throws with 2.1 seconds left didn’t leave much time for the Nets to get a quality shot to tie the game. (Durant’s desperation 3 still almost went in.)This was the kind of game where Antetokounmpo’s considerable strengths and weaknesses were on full display. In the first quarter, Antetokounmpo attacked the rim relentlessly, and was able to get himself multiple dunks in the way that has made him a star. He got his primary defender — Blake Griffin — into early foul trouble.But after the opening quarter, Antetokounmpo’s flaws began to manifest. The Nets left him wide open from the perimeter, and Antetokounmpo obliged the Nets by shooting lots of 3’s. He was 1 for 8 from deep, and those missed shots helped the Nets, who are still missing James Harden, climb back in the game. It was Antetokounmpo’s career high in 3-point shots in a postseason game.Giannis Antetokounmpo took eight 3-point shots, a career playoff high. He made just one.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesAsked about his shooting, Antetokounmpo seemed to be taken by surprise at first: “I took eight 3’s tonight?”“They’re back. You’ve got to shoot it,” Antetokounmpo said, referring to how defenders play off him. “Not necessarily, you’ve got to shoot, but you’ve got to make the best decision.”Antetokounmpo further defended his willingness to take jumpers by saying that his instinct told him to do so and that basketball is a game based on instinct.“Like everybody, if you wake up in the morning and you think you’ve got to drink a cup of coffee, and that’s what you want to do — instinct is telling you, that’s what your soul is telling you — whatever the case might be, that’s what you do. It doesn’t even matter what happens next,” Antetokounmpo said.It is also possible that Antetokounmpo strayed to the perimeter to avoid the risk of initiating contact under the basket and getting fouled.He was only 4 for 9 from the free throw line, and also had a rarely called 10-second violation. Defensively, the Bucks held the Nets to 36.2 shooting from the field. Durant was only 11 for 28 from the field. Kyrie Irving was 9 for 22.One offensive liability the Nets have — a rare one — is that they are predominantly a jump shooting team. They’re based on finesse, rather than on attacking the basket in the way Antetokounmpo does. The Nets only went to the line eight times on Thursday, as opposed to the Bucks’ 19. Six of those free throws were shot by Durant, who missed many midrange shots he usually makes.This means the same looks that fell for the Nets in the first two games didn’t fall on Thursday. That happens sometimes with jump shooting teams. There is a high amount of variance and at some point, usually a regression to the mean.Joe Harris, one of the best 3-point shooters in the league, missed several wide open chances and finished 1 for 11 from the field. And if jump shots aren’t falling for the Nets, they have trouble scoring. (During the regular season, the Nets were second in the league in 3-point percentage at 39.2 percent. On Thursday night, they were 8 for 32 for 25 percent.)Which means a slow, low-scoring slugfest could benefit Milwaukee in the long-term. But it’s unclear Antetokounmpo wants that.“We could play better,” Antetokounmpo said. “We could play faster. We could play more together. We can move the ball better so we can get back to our scoring 110, 120 points like we usually do.” More

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      Nets Brush Aside the Bucks to Lead Series, 2-0

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      A 39-point drubbing sends the series back to Milwaukee, and the Bucks back to the drawing board.One can easily call the Milwaukee Bucks’ performance against the Nets on Monday night an embarrassment.It was, after all, a 39-point drubbing, and gave the Nets a commanding 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series. The 125-86 win was the largest in the Nets’ playoff history, and their biggest margin of victory all season.Kyrie Irving hit a 3-pointer to open the game. Soon, the Nets’ lead was 10 points. By the end of the first quarter, it was 17. And then the floodgates opened. At one point, the lead grew to 49.The Bucks had no answers. Their fans couldn’t even blame the referees for letting the game get out of hand: The Nets shot only seven free throws. They simply scored whenever they wanted.“We didn’t play very well overall,” Mike Budenholzer, the Bucks coach, said in a stone-faced understatement. “First quarter. The whole game. Yeah, so, I think we’ve got to play better from start to end.”Keeping the score closer might have been merely a cosmetic gesture, though. The Nets are the superior team, both in talent and in execution. And they have dominated both games of this series while missing James Harden, one of the best offensive players in the league. Unlike most teams the Nets play, the Bucks have a counterpoint for Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Harden: a dominant former most valuable player of their own in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Antetokounmpo played well in the opening game of this series, scoring 34 points on 24 shots and grabbing 11 rebounds. The problem for Budenholzer and his team is that the Nets just brushed it off. It is not a great sign when a team’s star plays like a star, when the opposing team loses one of theirs to injury, and the games are still not competitive.Little went right for P.J. Tucker and the other Bucks.Elsa/Getty ImagesThe Bucks have been vexed by Durant in particular, their inability to stop him traced to one important advantage: Durant has no weak spots as an offensive player. Defenders can’t force him left or right for a more advantageous position because he can score from anywhere on the floor.P.J. Tucker is stronger than Durant. Antetokounmpo might be taller. Jrue Holiday is quicker. All three are excellent defensively, and all three have taken their turns trying to guard him. Durant had counters for all of them. When he is single-covered, he easily got around bigger defenders with his exceptional ball handling. Against smaller ones, he merely shot over them. When the Bucks double-teamed him, Durant slipped passes to teammates like Joe Harris or Irving.On Monday, Durant finished with 32 points and 6 assists in 33 minutes. He was mesmerizing. Unguardable.All is not lost for the Bucks. If there is one way for them to keep these games close, it could be by hitting their 3’s.The Bucks have been dismal from deep so far, shooting 24.5 percent combined in the first two games of the series — almost 15 points lower than their regular-season average.Meanwhile, the Nets shot a whopping 50 percent on 3-pointers on Monday night, after making 38.5 percent in Game 1.If Milwaukee can find something approximating its regular-season form, it will open up the paint for Antetokounmpo. This may require more minutes for Bobby Portis and Bryn Forbes, bench players who can shoot, and starting Antetokounmpo at center, to allow for more perimeter quickness.And the Bucks can take some lessons from the Nets’ only postseason loss so far: Game 3 of their first-round series against the Boston Celtics. The overmatched Celtics stole a win that night, even as Durant and Harden had strong games, because they shot 16 of 39 (41 percent) from behind the arc, which allowed them to keep pace late in the game.Of course, Jayson Tatum, the Celtics star, helped quite a bit by scoring 50 points. Milwaukee is going to need nights like that from Antetokounmpo, who had difficulty getting into an offensive rhythm on Monday. The Bucks are not going to win many games with Antetokounmpo, their best player, shooting only 15 times.“I’ve got to be more aggressive and get to my spots more,” Antetokounmpo acknowledged after the game. “That’s pretty much it.”James Harden, left, was missing, but Kevin Durant and the other Nets were more than enough.Elsa/Getty ImagesNot quite. It’s not necessarily only a question of aggression. There were far too many possessions Monday on which Antetokounmpo put his head down and tried to drive into a wall of defenders. Aggression without a Plan B leads to 39-point losses. Antetokounmpo needs to get the ball in different spots and not just bring it up as the team’s de facto point guard.But all the adjustments in the world won’t close the talent gap between the two teams. It’s not just that Durant and Irving are outclassing the Bucks’ top players. It’s that the rest of the Nets roster — even role players like Bruce Brown and Mike James — are playing some of their best basketball of their season at the right time. And to make matters worse for Milwaukee, the Nets might get the injured Harden and Jeff Green back for Game 3.Short of the Nets forgetting what time that game is on Thursday, the Bucks could be in for more of the same. More

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      N.B.A. Fans Wanted a Show. They’re Also Getting a Reckoning.

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      The entertainment of the playoffs has been coupled with a pressing message from players that fans have disrespected them for too long.Isaiah Thomas finally felt a conversation was in order.Thomas, a member of the Washington Wizards in 2019-20, was playing in Philadelphia against the 76ers. A fan had been cursing at him, while holding outstretched middle fingers from both of his hands.After it happened a third time, Thomas walked into the stands — calmly, he said — to talk to the fan.“I’m not going to go in there by myself, trying to raise havoc,” Thomas said. “But in my situation, I needed to say something to that man and let him know that that was not right.”The fan, Thomas said, quickly apologized, saying he was upset that a free throw Thomas had made prevented him from cashing in on a promotion for a free Frosty.“That means you don’t respect me as a human being,” Thomas said. “I think that’s why players are so upset now. It’s like: ‘Are you looking at us like human beings? As people? Or just somebody you’re coming to watch?’”The N.B.A., moving into the second round of the playoffs, has given fans plenty to watch, from the stunning play of Phoenix’s Devin Booker, the quick exit of the Los Angeles Lakers, and the aligning of the Nets’ stars to the battles of one-upmanship between Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Portland’s Damian Lillard.But the playoffs have also been defined by unruly fan behavior as N.B.A. arenas started opening to near capacity in time for the playoffs. The last time there were this many fans in arenas, it was before the N.B.A. was at the center of the protests for social justice and equality that roiled the country in the fall. Fans are returning to watch many of the same players — but the players are not the same. The message from athletes, especially those who are Black, is that they want to be respected.In New York, a fan spat on Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young. In Utah, the family of Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant was targeted with racist and lewd remarks while watching in the stands. In Boston, Nets guard Kyrie Irving had a water bottle hurled in his direction. In Philadelphia, a fan dumped popcorn on Washington’s Russell Westbrook as he left the floor after an injury.Knicks fans cheered before Game 1 in the first round of the 2021 N.B.A. playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks.Seth Wenig/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“What if he would’ve ran into the stands and put his hands on that fan?” Thomas said. “Everybody would’ve said he was wrong. But in any other setting in life, if I’m walking down the street and somebody pours popcorn on me, what do you think is going to happen?”In some ways, raucous behavior is another indicator of a return to prepandemic life. Sports is often a bellwether for society, and to a point, extreme behavior is ingrained in fandom — hence the term fanatic. As the country reopens, airlines are experiencing boisterous conduct and people are fighting in stands at baseball stadiums.In basketball, fans are stimulated by the charged atmosphere of the playoffs and some are spurred by liquid courage. The intimacy of the sport allows fans to be in proximity to players, and while players are in postseason form, security forces are not yet back in the rhythm of hosting this many fans for the first time in more than a year.“The fans are emboldened and lessen the value of these athletes as human beings when they engage with them in this way,” said David West, a retired forward who won two championships with Golden State.Emerging from the pandemic may have created a reckoning between N.B.A. fans and players. Some fans may have pent-up frustration from being isolated for so long. Kevin Durant, Irving’s Nets teammate, said pandemic quarantining had “got a lot of people on edge.” The incidents involve only a minuscule fraction of the thousands of fans who have returned to N.B.A. arenas. The egregiousness of the behaviors cannot be defined under a singular classification.But some travel beyond the traditional heckling of, say, Spike Lee at Madison Square Garden taunting an opposing player. They involve subtle and overt racism — “underlying racism and just treating people like they’re in a human zoo,” Irving said. And while the interactions are not new, the infractions are being documented through social media and arena cameras, and players seem more willing to speak out against them.“In general, it seems like this is what happens when people haven’t been outside for a year and a half,” said Louis Moore, an associate history professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. “Specifically, it’s part of who we are as fans. It’s fandom. It’s rowdyism. And then it’s even more specific when it looks like these N.B.A. incidents are targeted at Black athletes. That’s part of American sports.”Before Irving, a former Celtic, returned to Boston, he asked fans not to be belligerent or racist. Black athletes in multiple sports, including the Celtics legend Bill Russell, who once had someone break into his home and defecate on his bed, have spoken about the racism they’ve experienced in Boston. The treatment dates all the way back to George Dixon, who was the first Black man to win a boxing world title and fought in the United States during the post-Civil War era.The police in Boston arrested Cole Buckley, a 21-year-old from Braintree, Mass., on suspicion of throwing the water bottle toward Irving. Buckley pleaded not guilty to a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.Buckley being arrested after the game.Elise Amendola/Associated Press“I’ve had situations so often throughout my career where we don’t really talk about it, because we want to be mentally tough,” Irving said after the incident. “We want to be tough-minded. We don’t want to be called soft or we’re not man enough to deal with boos.”As in Boston, opposing players have also spoken out against the treatment they’ve received in Utah. In 2019, two fans at Vivint Smart Home Arena were barred for using racist language toward Westbrook.“You felt this sense of angst that exists with some of the fans,” West said of playing in Utah, adding, “I just never let it affect me, but it also never got physical with me.”The fans involved in the first-round incidents were barred indefinitely from the arenas.“There is zero tolerance for inappropriate and disrespectful fan behavior at our games,” Commissioner Adam Silver of the N.B.A. said in an interview. “Fans engaging in acts like that in our arenas will be caught and banned from attending. The safety of players, officials and all attendees is our top priority, which is why we have worked diligently with our teams and law enforcement to increase security presence at our arenas throughout the remainder of the playoffs and will pursue all legal remedies against anyone who violates our fan code of conduct.”In Utah, the Jazz owner Ryan Smith provided Morant’s family with courtside seats for Game 5. Tee Morant, Ja’s father, praised the organization and Jazz players for their response, although his wife, Jamie, decided against returning to Salt Lake City.“It was a nice gesture from the Jazz,” Tee Morant told ESPN. “It was unfortunate. It was just a few fans — most of them were great and cheering right alongside with us.”Durant told reporters after the Irving incident that fans needed to “grow up” and treat players with respect. “These men are human,” he said, adding that players are not “animals” and “not in a circus.”In 2019, Thomas received a two-game suspension after the Frosty incident, and two fans — the one who had held up his middle fingers toward Thomas and another heckler — were barred from Wells Fargo Arena for a year.“The consequences, I don’t know what it should be,” Thomas said, “but I think it should be a little bit more so fans would think twice about what they do before they do it or what they say before they say it. But I don’t think the arena ban is scaring anybody off.”He continued: “I don’t have the answer to what they could possibly do. I know the N.B.A. is on top of everything for the players, but something’s got to change for sure.” More

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      The Nets Aren’t Unbeatable, but It’s OK to Be Impressed

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      The Boston Celtics tried in their first-round series but were too depleted to compete. The Nets’ next opponent, the Milwaukee Bucks, may have a better shot.The game and the series were never in serious doubt.The depleted Boston Celtics maintained a sliver of hope of emerging with a victory over the Nets on Tuesday by initially keeping the score close in Game 5 of the best-of-seven series. But, in quick and devastating succession, the Nets crushed any ambition the Celtics had left. That’s what can happen when you have stars like these:Kevin Durant opened the salvos with a 3-point shot midway through the fourth quarter.Kyrie Irving buried one on the Nets’ following possession.Next, James Harden followed with one of his own.In less than a minute, an 8-point Celtics deficit ballooned to 15 and a first-round series win for the Nets.For the Nets, the sequence showcased their roster as envisioned months ago, the stars aligning to alternate taking turns at the helm in piloting the Nets toward a championship.Yes, that lineup had few opportunities to coalesce throughout a rickety regular season. The Nets entered the postseason with questions about the chemistry of their three best players. They had played just eight games together while limited with injuries and coronavirus health and safety protocols.Durant, Irving and Harden are basketball geniuses.So what if they didn’t play much together?Throw one of them the ball in isolation and watch the buckets pour in.“We don’t want to take any of this for granted,” Irving said after the Game 5 victory. “We know this doesn’t happen too often in our culture, in our history, where three of the best scorers to ever play the game and then you have a collection of guys that have done unbelievable things as well in this league, either coming off the bench or starting with us.”The Nets faced a shorthanded Celtics team. Boston entered without the services of the All-Star Jaylen Brown (wrist) and lost key components as the series wore on in guard Kemba Walker (knee) and center Robert Williams (ankle). But the Celtics still mustered a fight and forced the Nets to break a sweat in dispatching them.“We’ve made strides in just a short period of time,” Irving said.Here are some other key takeaways following the Nets’ first-round victory over Boston.Kyrie Irving is ready for the moment.Irving balled out against the Celtics.He, of course, had experienced previous postseason success. He hit the crucial shot that propelled Cleveland to a championship over Golden State in 2016. But he did not have the subsequent breakthrough after he was traded to Boston in 2017 — as Celtics fans will certainly attest — and spent most of the 2019-20 season, his first with the Nets, out while rehabbing an injury.He is among friends now.More than anything, the Nets’ three stars sound like admirers of one another, appreciative of their individual skill sets.Here’s Durant discussing Irving following the Boston series: “His mind is so different that stuff that he brings out is just unexpected — one legger, off the right leg, shooting off the glass, left-hand finishes, right-hand finishes, ball handling.”“He’s a joy to watch and play with,” Durant added.Irving had a spectacular regular season. Against Boston, he was dynamic.He punctuated his first-round performance by pouring in 39 points in a Game 4 blowout win.“I’m grateful for the opportunity that I had in Boston,” Irving said, adding that “there was a lot going on personally while I was there in Boston that people don’t know about.”Now, he said, he’s moving on: “So just grateful that we have a chance to be together in the trenches, me and my teammates, and we just get to move on from this.”James Harden had the Nets’ first playoff triple double since the days of Jason Kidd.Adam Hunger/Associated PressJames Harden is willing to sacrifice.Harden, in the first-round series, showed he was willing to use any of the tools in his bag to win.Often, he blows past his primary defender and surveys the remaining defense. He scores if the lane is open, but is only too happy to pass the ball if an easy scoring opportunity presents itself.In Game 5, Harden amassed a triple-double — 34 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, becoming the first Net to do so in the playoffs since Jason Kidd in 2007.“He comes into the gym every day and it’s just excitement to play basketball,” Durant said. “With somebody who loves to play so much, the energy is just infectious and you can tell everybody was drawn to James since the day he got here and his presence was just key for us.”Harden is the lone member of the Nets’ Big Three without a championship. This may be his best shot.Kevin Durant’s defense will be key.Durant is an amazing scorer. That is not debatable.But the Nets have that area covered. Durant’s defense may be one of their best weapons for their second-round series against the Milwaukee Bucks.Milwaukee breezed past Miami in a first-round sweep, atoning for last year’s playoff loss to the Heat and reinserting themselves as an Eastern Conference contender.No one on this planet can fully contain the offensive juggernaut that is Durant, Harden and Irving. Milwaukee, at least, has the ingredients to possibly slow them down. Jrue Holiday, acquired in an off-season trade, is arguably the league’s top perimeter defender. P.J. Tucker and Khris Middleton don’t mind mixing it up in the trenches. Giannis Antetokounmpo is last season’s defensive player of the year.“He’s long, athletic,” Durant said of Antetokounmpo. “He plays hard. He cares about his teammates. He cares about winning. Put that combination together, you make a tough player.”But Durant may as well have been describing himself. Against Boston, he swooped in from the weakside to have the backs of defeated primary defenders. His defensive acumen will probably be a key if the Nets are to advance to the conference finals.Second-round injury watch?Both the Nets and the Bucks are largely healthy but not at full strength. Milwaukee’s Donte DiVincenzo is out for the remainder of the playoffs with an ankle injury.Jeff Green, the Nets’ versatile defender, missed the last three games of the Boston series with a strained plantar fascia. More

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      The Nets’ Starters Are Back Together. And So Are the Fans.

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      Over 14,000 fans attended Game 1 of the Nets-Celtics series as Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Blake Griffin and Joe Harris started together for the first time this season.Kevin Durant has dazzled in the postseason, having claimed two Most Valuable Player Awards in N.B.A. finals. But before Saturday night, his last postseason appearance was in 2019.Durant, a member of the Golden State Warriors then, had worked hurriedly to return to Game 5 of that year’s N.B.A. finals from a calf strain. He played about a quarter against the Toronto Raptors before limping off the court with an Achilles’ tendon tear.Plenty has occurred in basketball and in the world since. But on Saturday night, a tinge of familiarity returned.There was Durant, in Game 1 of a first-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics, pacing the Nets in scoring in front of over 14,000 cheering fans at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.“The whole ride this year, seeing him come back from such a devastating injury, he had such a long layoff, such a big hill to climb and a lot of doubt,” Nets Coach Steve Nash said of Durant. “Who knows if he comes back anywhere near the level he’s accustomed to?“So a tribute to his work ethic, his sacrifice, his talent, that he’s still able to play at an incredibly high level after that injury, that layoff.”The N.B.A. had waited months to find out how Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden would perform as headliners in a star-studded lineup.To be sure, the Nets are working through wrinkles typically smoothed over during a traditional training camp, or even the regular season. Cycles of injuries prevented Durant, Irving and Harden, who came over from Houston in a blockbuster trade in January, from sharing the court often.Game 1, a 104-93 victory over Boston, was the first time Durant, Irving, Harden, Blake Griffin and Joe Harris started together this season.“We knew it would be fun to play in front of the fans, but to step out there and see the place packed like that and the energy in the building was unbelievable,” Nash said. “I think there was a little bit of newness in many ways. We weren’t sharp offensively, but we found a way.”Nets guard James Harden celebrated a 3-point shot against the Celtics. The Nets missed their first 10 3-point attempts, and finished 8 of 34 from beyond the arc.Corey Sipkin/Associated PressThe Nets brushed off a sluggish start and, perhaps, the unfamiliarity of playing in front of a sizable crowd for the first time since the N.B.A. paused the 2019-20 season in March.An off-brand version of the Nets emerged in the bubble restart last year at Walt Disney World in Florida. Durant and Irving were rehabilitating from injuries. Spencer Dinwiddie and DeAndre Jordan did not play after testing positive for the coronavirus. Wilson Chandler opted out of resuming the season.The Nets had to scramble to fill out their roster, and Toronto quickly swept them from the first round of the playoffs.Saturday presented a traditional feel, more in line with what was envisioned when Durant and Irving shook up the N.B.A. by deciding to join forces in free agency before the 2019-20 season.Barclays Center rocked and reverberated with 14,391 spectators in attendance, the maximum allowed and just a few thousand short of the arena’s full capacity.“Maybe I’m speaking for myself, but the crowd kind of just threw me off a little bit,” Harden said. “It was pretty loud in there. The vibe was what we’ve been missing.”The Nets missed their first 10 3-pointers and trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half.“They definitely gave us an advantage, and it was weird,” Durant said of playing again in front of a large crowd. “We haven’t seen them all season. And there was 1,500 there the last couple months of the season, but to see people at the front row and then see more in the upper and lower bowl, it was pretty cool. And I’m pretty sure they enjoyed the win, but we want to play better for them as well.”Durant, Irving and Harden ignited in the third quarter, providing the Nets with their first 22 points of the second half, while erasing a 6-point halftime deficit.Importantly, the Nets limited Boston to 40 second-half points.“Maybe we just rushed,” Nash said. “We were a little impatient to start the game. I’d probably say the truth is somewhere in the middle — a little bit that they haven’t played much together, a little bit that it was an exciting evening for everyone to walk in the gym to see that many people, and our fans were outstanding.”Durant ended with 32 points and 12 rebounds. Both were game highs.“It’s always great playing in this time of year,” Durant said. “That intensity is the next level; it’s different than what’s in the regular season. It felt great to be back out there among the best teams and players in the league and looking forward to Game 2.”Irving scored 29 points. Harden added 21 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists.“It definitely felt different compared to what most of the season felt like, going to different arenas,” Irving said. “But coming back home and welcoming a lot of our fans home, you could feel the anticipation for a quality basketball game out there.”The attendance at Barclays Center on Saturday night was 14,391. Elsa/Getty ImagesEven this depleted version of the Celtics is too skillful and prideful to be classified as a breezy matchup for the Nets.Marcus Smart is lucky he isn’t a debit card, because there is no charge he’s unwilling to take. Robert Williams was a nuisance in the post, blocking nine shots, a Celtics single-game playoff record. (Blocks became an official statistic after Bill Russell had retired.)Boston will need much more from Jayson Tatum (6 for 20 for 22 points) and Kemba Walker (5 for 16 for 15 points) to steal a game or two and turn the matchup into a series.“Anything can happen,” said Irving, a former Celtic who would know firsthand when he said Boston was a well-coached team. “Especially against the Celtics. That lucky Irishman is always around the Celtics.”Irving added: “It’s going to be a great battle between a lot of great players on the floor.”If it is the case that “anything” does not happen, Brooklyn will continue using this series to get needed repetitions before facing what will be a more difficult second-round opponent, the winner of the series between the third-seeded Milwaukee Bucks and the sixth-seeded Miami Heat. More

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      Even the Celtics Think the Nets Will Probably Win

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      The Nets would be heavily favored in the first-round playoff matchup even without Boston’s injury woes. “As a fan of the N.B.A., it’s hard to see those guys losing,” Celtics Coach Brad Stevens said.Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving spent about as much time on the court together with the Nets this season as it takes to watch a Martin Scorsese movie.The lack of reps is likely to have little impact as the No. 2 Nets face the No. 7 Boston Celtics, winners of Tuesday’s play-in game over the Washington Wizards, in the first round of the N.B.A. playoffs in the Eastern Conference.The Nets are assembled for the singular purpose of stacking 16 postseason wins, which add up to a championship. They enter the playoffs with all three stars available after Harden returned from a hamstring strain before resting the regular-season finale, which didn’t matter for the team’s playoff seeding.The threesome has the combined credentials for a special postseason. Durant is a two-time champion and won a finals Most Valuable Player Award with Golden State. Irving was a vital member of Cleveland’s 2016 championship. And Harden, a scoring champion and former M.V.P., once played in the finals with Durant in Oklahoma City.But for all their accolades, they were mostly absent from last year’s postseason. Durant was still recovering from his ruptured Achilles’ tendon. Irving dealt with a shoulder injury. And Harden’s Houston Rockets whimpered out of the playoffs, eventually triggering the seismic deal that landed him with the Nets.Individually, they do not have much on the basketball court to prove. Collectively, a successful postseason from the Nets could show that years of planning and plotting by other franchises can all be for nothing. The N.B.A. is a star-driven league and the Nets flex a stacked deck.Here’s what you need to know about their first-round series against the Celtics.The three biggest Nets stars, Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant, spent only 202 minutes together on the court during the regular season because of injuries, coronavirus protocols and personal absences.Adam Hunger/Associated PressHow many games have Durant, Harden and Irving played in together?Eight games for a total of 202 minutes.Really?Yes, just four more quarters than a playoff series stretched to its max. Durant missed games because of coronavirus health and safety protocols and a hamstring injury. Irving missed time for personal reasons and for a facial contusion near the end of the season. And Harden, traded to the Nets from the Rockets in January, missed much of the end of the regular season with a right hamstring injury.How did the Nets still finish with the second-best record in the East?They can do video-game highlight plays, like Durant’s recent finishing with an alley-oop pass off the backboard.The Nets are not just any team with a rookie coach and an unsteady lineup. There is a reason Coach Steve Nash hasn’t sweated much this season. While Durant, Irving and Durant did not share the court often, Nash has often had a combination of the three at his disposal and they’ve all been sensational. Impressively, Harden did not need much time to familiarize himself with the Nets’ personnel.Irving capped one of the finest seasons of his career in becoming just the ninth player in N.B.A. history to shoot at least 90 percent from the free-throw line, 50 percent from the floor and 40 percent from behind-the-arc. He joined Durant and Nash in rarefied territory.Enough about those three. What about the rest of the roster?A team is stacked when the league’s leading 3-point shooter isn’t mentioned until this point. The sharpshooter Joe Harris paced the league by making 47.5 percent of his shots from deep, and he should be available after missing the final three games of the regular season with a gluteal strain.The Nets tried to upend the buyout market by obtaining former stars — Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge — hoping they still had a little mileage left in the tank. Griffin has showed the occasional spring in his step and had 20 points in a win over the Denver Nuggets. An irregular heartbeat abruptly forced Aldridge’s retirement from the N.B.A. in April at the age of 35.Jeff Green, a veteran with plenty of playoff experience and a member of the Durant-Harden Oklahoma City teams, has been a decent addition. Bruce Brown wiggled his way into the rotation following the Harden trade and never relinquished his opportunity. The Nets shouldn’t lack for scoring, but they will be without Spencer Dinwiddie, the capable guard, who is recovering from a knee injury.Harden’s trade to the Nets in January from Houston shifted the power dynamic in the N.B.A.Adam Hunger/Associated PressWhat’s an interesting Nets subplot?As a head coach, Mike D’Antoni revolutionized the league’s offense, ushering it into modernity by prioritizing space and 3-point shooting. His two main conduits for breathing life into the vision in his stops in Phoenix and Houston? Nash and Harden.For all of D’Antoni’s influence, he never won an N.B.A. championship. With the Nets, he is an assistant to Nash and working with Harden, who is also still vying for his first title.Anything juicier?How about Irving against his former coach, Brad Stevens, teammates and organization? In 2018, Irving told the die-hard Celtics fan base, “If you guys will have me back, I plan on re-signing here.” Then in July 2019, he signed with the Nets.How did Boston make the playoffs?Barely. Like the Nets, Boston (36-36) meandered through the regular-season, hindered by injuries and virus protocols. The Celtics needed the play-in game and Jayson Tatum’s 50 points against the Wizards to arrive at this matchup. They spent much of the season not looking like a franchise that had journeyed to the Eastern Conference finals three of the last four seasons.Unlike the Nets, Boston will not be at full strength at the right time. The All-Star Jaylen Brown is out after wrist surgery for a torn ligament. Center Robert Williams is uncertain after he aggravated a turf toe injury during the play-in game.“We’ll do our best to get ready for Brooklyn,” a realistic Stevens told reporters after defeating the Wizards. “They’re the best of the best. As a fan of the N.B.A., it’s hard to see those guys losing. We’re going to have to play great and play great together.”What’s a key matchup to watch?Durant and Tatum are two of the most prolific and innovative scorers on the planet. This will be Durant’s first postseason since he suffered his Achilles’ tendon injury in Game 5 of the 2019 N.B.A. finals with Golden State. As much of an offensive talent as Durant is, Nash has labeled him his team’s best defender and Durant will likely check Tatum often in the series.Jayson Tatum is Boston’s best hope for upsetting the Nets.Brad Penner/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHow did the Nets and Celtics fare against each another during the regular season?The Nets swept the three games from the Celtics, despite having to mix and match their lineups.Why will the Nets win?See the above.Why will the Celtics win?Tatum and this recent photo of Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York dressed up in random Nets gear. De Blasio was posing to bring attention to the Barclays Center pop-up vaccination site, but it is not exactly a look that strikes fear in an opponent. More

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      Teammates in Brooklyn, Rivals in M.L.S.

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      When Kevin Durant bought a stake in the Philadelphia Union last summer, he became the fourth member of the Nets with an ownership stake in Major League Soccer.In the early days of Major League Soccer’s restart last summer, Jim Curtin, the coach of the Philadelphia Union, told his players that he had lined up a special guest for a video conference call.The Union players were in the league’s bubble at Walt Disney World, outside of Orlando, Fla., and because of health and safety protocols that limited large group gatherings, they had scattered to their hotel rooms for the call. A familiar figure soon appeared on their screens. Kevin Durant, one of the team’s new owners, had arrived to deliver a pep talk.As Durant’s speech — a message about what it takes to succeed and become a champion — morphed into a nothing-is-off-limits discussion, the players asked him about his N.B.A. title runs with Golden State, about his decision to join the Nets in free agency and about his then-ongoing rehabilitation from Achilles’ tendon surgery.“It hit with our players because they’ve all been injured at certain times — how lonely that can be, and getting yourself back to the top,” Curtin said. “The interesting thing is that I have guys from 15 different countries in my group, and all of them were like, ‘That was amazing.’ I think Kevin contributed to the team in a bigger way than he realized.”When Durant agreed to purchase a 10 percent stake in the Union last June — an investment worth more than $20 million — he joined a growing but select club of basketball stars who have acquired interests in professional soccer teams. LeBron James was ahead of the curve when, in 2011, he secured a small stake in the English club Liverpool.For a short spell, Carmelo Anthony owned Puerto Rico F.C. of the now-defunct North American Soccer League, and the W.N.B.A. star Candace Parker recently bought a piece of Angel City F.C., an expansion team in the National Women’s Soccer League.Durant isn’t even the only soccer owner in the Nets’ locker room. He gets daily reminders of the N.B.A.’s rapid cross-pollination with M.L.S.: Steve Nash, the Nets’ coach, is a co-owner of the Vancouver Whitecaps; Joe Tsai, the Nets’ owner, has a stake in Los Angeles F.C.; and James Harden, one of Durant’s teammates, arrived in Brooklyn this season with an ownership slice of the Houston Dynamo.“I’m sure once we play those guys, me and James will have a nice little wager on it,” Durant said in a telephone interview, adding: “It’s cool to see guys in our sport stepping over and doing something different.”The involvement of top basketball players in North American soccer comes at a time when athletes — particularly Black athletes — are increasingly leveraging their wealth and their public profiles to upend the traditional athlete-owner dynamic. Consider that the N.W.S.L.’s ownership ranks now include not only Parker but also Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, tennis stars who understand their influence and are seizing opportunities to wield it beyond the court.Harden has a partial ownership stake in the Houston Dynamo of M.L.S. and the Dash of the N.W.S.L.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“I think players are realizing now that they have the opportunity to not just play for these teams and get paid by these owners,” Parker said. “They have the opportunity to actually write the checks. This generation has a different mind-set.”Parker said she became more serious about the idea of team ownership in recent years as a player for the Los Angeles Sparks. She got to know the owners, she said, and was intrigued by what happens behind the scenes — and the profound effect of those decisions.Durant said that he had thrown himself into the Union’s affairs. He participates in the ownership group’s weekly conference calls. He has chatted with the coaches about development and training. He has offered opinions on everything from jersey design to community outreach. He has conferred with the players about social justice issues, joining a call that helped lead to the team’s role in a voter-registration drive last year. And he has shown a willingness to opine on dubious refereeing decisions, like any other good Union fan.After the Union parted with two of their best players in the off-season — midfielder Brenden Aaronson now plays in Austria and defender Mark McKenzie left for Belgium — Durant may be the team’s most high-profile addition in the last year.Durant was not exactly a soccer aficionado growing up in Prince George’s County, Md., outside of Washington, D.C. Tall for his age and 6-foot-10 by high school, he spent most of his time working on his jump shot. But he would kick the soccer ball around with his friends, he said, and he quickly identified a parallel between the sports.“I swear one of the things he loves about it is that it’s reliant on scoring a bucket,” said Rich Kleiman, Durant’s manager and business partner.Early in his N.B.A. career, Durant took a couple of promotional trips to Europe on behalf of Nike, one of his sponsors, and met some of the company’s other global pitchmen. They happened to be soccer players. Durant’s exposure continued to grow when he joined the Warriors and developed a relationship with Nash, who was then working with the team as a player development consultant. Nash, who has been a co-owner of the Whitecaps since 2008, is an avid soccer player whose brother Martin once played for Canada’s national team.Nash has had a stake in the Vancouver Whitecaps since 2008. He trained with prospects for the team in 2009.Andy Clark/Reuters“Steve is huge into soccer,” Durant said. “We’ve talked about what it is to be an owner, and how much traveling he does to stay up with the team and how often he goes over there.”Durant recalled a formative experience in 2019, when he saw a news release announcing that Harden had joined the ownership group of the Dynamo and the Houston Dash of the N.W.S.L. “I got more and more interested when I saw some of my peers get into this,” Durant said.For athletes like Durant, Kleiman said, soccer franchises are “a realistic entry point” for team ownership. Current players are not allowed to acquire stakes in N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. teams, and the valuations of N.F.L. franchises and top European soccer clubs can reach into the billions, putting significant ownership stakes out of reach even for wealthy athletes. (There are exceptions, of course: James purchased a minor stake in the Boston Red Sox last month from the same partners who own Liverpool.)Parker said the driving force behind her involvement with Angel City F.C. was her 11-year-old daughter, Lailaa. Parker, a two-time winner of the W.N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award, has long been vocal about encouraging others to support and invest in women’s sports.Candace Parker is a superstar in the W.N.B.A. and has become a top commentator on the N.B.A., but she says her first love was soccer. She recently purchased a piece of Angel City F.C., an expansion team in the National Women’s Soccer LeagueJonathan Daniel/Getty Images“And my daughter, she’s the main one who kind of calls me on all my stuff. She was the one who was like, ‘But Mom, are you doing it?’” Parker said. “So I kind of had her in my brain when I decided to go about this, because I think it’s so important for us to not just say it but do it as well.”Parker said soccer, not basketball, was her first love. She played until she was 13, she said. “Until my parents crushed my dreams because I was going to be tall and they told me that they didn’t ever see any 6-foot-2 soccer players,” she said. “I wanted to be Mia Hamm or Brandi Chastain.”Durant had talked with a different M.L.S. team, D.C. United, about investing in the team before those negotiations stalled. After The Athletic reported on those discussions in October 2019, Jay Sugarman, the Union’s majority owner, reached out.“Sort of fortuitous timing,” Sugarman said. “We were looking for different voices in our ownership group.”Two months later, Durant and Kleiman visited with team officials at the Union’s training facility. Curtin operated as a tour guide. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little star-struck,” he said.“You could tell right away with Rich and with Kevin that they were serious,” Jim Curtin, the coach of the Philadelphia Union, said of Rich Kleiman and Durant. Kathy Willens/Associated PressAny preconceived ideas that Curtin had about Durant’s potential role — that he only wanted to attach his celebrity to the team without having any actual involvement — dissolved as they went around the building. Durant had questions.“You could tell right away with Rich and with Kevin that they were serious,” Curtin said.Sugarman said he sensed that Durant and Curtin were philosophically aligned. In the weight room, Curtin talked about how “beach muscles” are out and core strength is in. In the cafeteria, he introduced Durant to the team chef and emphasized the importance of diet to recovery. In the film room, Curtin mentioned how he liked to keep those sessions as tight as possible, otherwise he risked losing the players’ attention.“I feel the same way,” Durant replied.Curtin also explained how he avoided the locker room because he considered it the players’ “sacred space,” and how the team prioritized its youth academy and innovation. Philadelphia has experimented with GPS trackers, he told Durant. The team flies drones at training sessions. It digs into analytics.“He was interested,” Curtin said. “Not only interested in the game of soccer but also interested in what we do on the field and how we get our players ready.”By last June, the deal was official. Durant’s ownership stake includes a marketing partnership with Thirty Five Ventures, the sports, media and entertainment company that he co-founded with Kleiman. But it also has given him a championship goal in another sport.The Union finished with the best record in M.L.S. in last year’s shortened season but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. They, and Durant, want a better ending this year.“We just want to keep building,” Durant said. “It’s a lot of work to be done.” More