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The Brooklyn Nets are playing some of the worst basketball in the league right now. Even with Kevin Durant sidelined with injury, a team with James Harden and a part-time Kyrie Irving shouldn't be rolling over the way it has of late.
It was more of the same for the Nets against the Utah Jazz on Friday night, a wire-to-wire defeat in which they never led. The final 125-102 scoreline was an improvement from a second half in which they fell behind by as much as 34 points before trimming the lead a bit in the fourth quarter.
Kyrie Irving called out the team's defensive intensity after the loss.
Via Brian Lewis of the New York Post:
Article Continues Below“We want to be able to impact the basketball on the defensive end so we’re not taking the ball out of the rim every single time,” said the Nets guard. “That’s a demoralizing way to play basketball.”
The Nets allowed the Jazz to shoot 56.5% from the field and 44.7% from the three-point line. Their shooting clip from the field actually went down from the first quarter, when they made 65% of their shots.
“They couldn’t miss at first, so it’s pretty demoralizing when you got to take the ball out of the hoop every time because every single shot they put up in the first five, six minutes [went in],” said Nets rookie Cam Thomas. “They shot like 50-something percent from the 3-point line. It was ridiculous, some crazy stat like that.”
The Brooklyn Nets have spiraled further down from the Eastern Conference standings, now just a half game ahead of the 7th place Toronto Raptors and 1.5 games from falling all the way to the 9th seed.
With James Harden trade rumors swirling and the NBA trade deadline fast approaching, the speculation will only get louder if the on-court results don't start changing in the next week or so.
