On a day when Brooklyn lost head coach Steve Nash, Kevin Durant and the Nets had an opportunity for a morale-boosting victory. The Nets led by as many as 12 points in the second half Tuesday against the Chicago Bulls. But as has been the case to start the season, Chicago stormed back to claim the win 108-99.

Brooklyn was without Ben Simmons and Seth Curry in the loss. Kevin Durant once again led the way with 32 points on 9 of 17 shooting. The former MVP ranks fourth in the league in scoring this season at 32.5 points per game. However, Brooklyn has struggled to find production from its injury-depleted supporting cast. Durant was visibly frustrated postgame when asked about his six turnovers in the loss.

“I mean, every night I'm gonna be guarded by five players, so I'm gonna turn the ball over,” he said. “I'm trying to be aggressive, trying to create stuff. The whole team is gonna guard me throughout the whole season, so get used to my turnovers.”

Unlike Brooklyn's first seven games, it was Durant's co-star Kyrie Irving, not the role players, that struggled in a massive way Tuesday. Irving scored just four points on 2 of 12 shooting. The loss marks the first time in Irving's career that he scored less than five points in a game while playing over 24 minutes.

The seven-time All-Star has been a point of controversy recently after posting a link to an antisemitic film on social media. Irving made headlines Saturday for a heated press conference in which he stood by the posts. And for the second-straight night, the star guard was not made available to the media postgame. General Manager Sean Marks said the organization wanted to give Irving an opportunity to cool off before answering questions again.

“I think everybody knows he’s going to have to answer these questions at some point,” Marks said pregame. “But I think the last postgame meeting didn’t go well and we’re not trying to cover it up, I think this is something that needs to be addressed, but let’s address it in the right form and fashion.”

“At some point he will come up here and do media again, but I think at this point we don’t want to cause more fuss right now,” he continued. “Let’s let him simmer down and let’s… I guess let’s let cooler minds prevail.”

Despite the drama, which seems to never end, Irving has been outstanding to start the season. The fourth-year Net was averaging 30.2 points per game heading into the contest. But Irving did not show his normal level of aggressiveness in Tuesday's loss, frequently deferring to Kevin Durant or Nets role players instead. And on a night where Brooklyn mostly had it going from three, the guard missed all six of his attempts.

“I thought he got some good looks. So we’ll take those any time,” interim coach Jacque Vaughn said of Irving postgame. “We need him to be at a premium level every night for us. That’s just part of how we’re built and trust that he’ll be ready to do it again.”

Irving's performance was poorly timed given Brooklyn received improved contributions from its supporting cast Tuesday. Royce O'Neale tied his career-high with 20 points on 8 of 12 shooting from the field and 4 of 6 from three. Nic Claxton added 10 points and 10 rebounds. Yuta Watanabe scored 10 more on 2 of 3 shooting from deep. Patty Mills contributed nine points, all in the first half.

The Nets have yet to put together a complete team performance this season. Tuesday could have been that night. Instead, Zach LaVine scored 20 fourth-quarter points to hand Brooklyn their fifth loss in six games. Durant said that his team played better defense Tuesday, but needs to hit shots down the stretch.

“We played good defense. They shot 43 percent from the field, but you got special players over there like Zach (LaVine). I mean, he can make tough shots — I mean really tough shots — to beat us, you know what I'm saying,” Durant said. “So it's a make-or-miss league. We talk about a lot of other factors in the game, but it's about making baskets. And that's what they did.”

The loss drops the Nets to 2-6 on the season. Brooklyn will look to make up some ground in road matchups with Washington and Charlotte to close the week.