The Brooklyn Nets are set to face the Oklahoma City Thunder at Barclays Center on Thursday night. The Nets had their big three Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving available for the stunning 138-112 slaying over the Bulls. We don't expect Kyrie Irving to appear in the next game since it's in Brooklyn where he is not yet eligible to play. But it does lead to a vital question: Is Kevin Durant playing vs Thunder?
Is Kevin Durant playing vs Thunder
Well, is Kevin Durant playing tonight? So far the Nets have had KD in all but five of their contests. He missed two with minor injuries, and three to health and safety protocols after testing positive for COVID. The team has taken the approach of not load managing him too much. Durant trails only Toronto's Fred VanVleet for minutes per game. But they've played an awful lot of games in a short amount of days, including some lengthy air plane lights. Although Durant won't use any of that as an excuse.
Kevin Durant didn't want to make any excuses about playing a back-to-back in Brooklyn and Portland, or having a heavy schedule coming up:
"Who cares? That's what championship teams go through – a little adversity…everybody's schedule is f–ked up" pic.twitter.com/KVncveDOO1
— Nets Videos (@SNYNets) January 11, 2022
Recently the team had an overtime matinee win vs. the Spurs, then set out for a cross-country flight to Oregon for a back-to-back vs. the Blazers in the next one. KD totaled 85 minutes in those two contests and the Nets split the pair. That's not ideal.
Back in October, when we were all wondering if the Nets would be super cautious with KD's minutes, coach Steve Nash teased clues that the team would be less conservative with his top gun's minutes, since now the D.C. native is further removed from the scary Achilles injury he sustained in the 2019 NBA Finals. Recall, KD only appeared in about half of Brooklyn's regular season games in 2020-2021.
“Yeah I think we’re more comfortable playing [Durant] in [back-to-backs],” Steve Nash said when the year first started. “You know he’s had more than enough time since the [Achilles injury suffered in 2019], since the return, he’s proven that he can handle that. Now do I want to pick some spots to be able to protect him this year? Of course. But its not as formulaic as perhaps last year was.”
Durant only played 30 minutes in the big win over the Bulls. It's his third lowest total of the year. Would the team consider getting him some rest in the next one? It would make some sense because James Harden alone might be enough to beat a Thunder team that is just 13-27.
“We'll see, anything's possible at this point,” said Nash. “We could rest, we could not, we could mix and match. But I think we're gonna see how everyone feels in the morning, how they come out of tonight and make a long-term decision for tomorrow.”
So things right now appear genuinely fluid. We don't have a verdict for you this moment because the team doesn't even know. What we do know is that Durant is not injured. And the superstar forward has indicated all season long he wants to play as much as possible.
“No, let me die out there,” Durant recently joked about his heavy minutes burden. “Nah, I'm just playing. No, I'm not concerned.”
So if he's not hurt, and he's not concerned, then the Nets would have to work hard to persuade him to sit out. That won't be easy. As of now, we'd guess he'll be out there. But the Nets are solely focused on a winning a title, and the one thing which has evaded them since they formed the big three is health. It wouldn't be surprising if they rested KD vs. a relatively weak opponent either. Stay tuned.
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