The Brooklyn Nets' debut of their new star trio ended in a disappointing loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving showed incredible flashes, but it ended in double overtime at the hands of Collin Sexton no less. Fingers have, already, been pointed in many directions, including at first-year head coach Steve Nash.
A lot went wrong for this game to end in a loss for the Nets, but in a double-overtime game the margins of victory are slim, coming down to small decisions in crucial moments.
On the daily Locked On Nets Podcast, hosts Doug Norrie and Adam Armbrecht broke down the debut. Moreover, about how this was the first big test for Steve Nash.
Doug Norrie: The Nets come out of the timeout at the end of the first overtime, Kyrie is the inbounder… The way he walked out of that timeout. I knew he was not taking the last shot. I knew that right away. I could tell from his face that he that the play had not been drawn up for him. I swear to God, I've got a lot of faults but I'm a very honest person.
Adam Armbrecht: I can vouch for that.
Doug Norrie: So I knew it in the moment, as he walked off the bench that he was not taking the last shot. So that was confirmed when he actually walked and took the place as the inbounder. I don't have any problem with that. The problem was… I don't even know what was drawn up. He stood there with a ball… They cleared out for KD who had Nance on him, I mean… Kevin Durant is Kevin Durant, but Nance is their best defender. So it's not the best spot you can be in especially when you can run maybe an action to get a switch or something because the rest of the Cavs defenders are pretty bad. They ran nothing to get him away from Nance. Then predictably, they get the ball in at the end of the five seconds and he just takes a fadeaway three over their best… He gets a contested three but I'm thinking well what was drawn up?
It was the first time where I thought about Nash, I thought that these were maybe a few missteps. They're correctable and this is an early-season game. At the end of the season, I doubt we're thinking about it. In the moment though, those are two very clear thoughts I had that these two things for the first time I thought were on Nash.
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