NEW YORK — Nets star Kevin Durant said the NBA fumbled the bag by keeping his team off the Christmas Day slate.
“Yeah, Knicks-Nets would’ve been a great Christmas Day matchup,” Durant said. “There’s probably some people, especially with how the Knicks are playing and the way we’re playing right now, I feel like that would be the perfect matchup on Christmas.”
In the NBA’s defense, it was unclear whether or not Durant would be on the Nets this season after he requested a trade from Brooklyn this offseason. Aside from the holiday slate, the NBA also sliced Brooklyn’s number of nationally televised games from 26 to 13.
And yet here the Nets are, holding the Eastern Conference’s fourth seed, with the Knicks two games behind in sixth place.
Durant said his trade request and the subsequent fallout played a likely role in the Nets’ omission from the holiday headliners.
“Hopefully, we get that going forward,” he said. “But yeah, I’m probably responsible for us not playing on Christmas with what went on this summer. But hey, it is what it is. We play on the 26th, that’s close enough.”
The Nets play the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday and the Cleveland Cavaliers on the day after Christmas.
The Christmas Day NBA schedule includes matchups between the 76ers and Knicks; Lakers and Mavericks; Bucks and Celtics; Grizzlies and Warriors; and Suns and Nuggets.
Irving uncertain
Nets star Kyrie Irving missed Wednesday’s win over the Golden State Warriors with what the team is calling right calf tightness.
Head coach Jacque Vaughn said Irving did some light shooting when he arrived at Barclays Center pregame and experienced “a little bit of tightness” in his calf.
Vaughn had no update on Irving’s status after the game.
“He’ll come in tomorrow and get assessed again, but hopefully looking forward to him playing on Friday,” he said.
Warren’s workload
Vaughn said veteran forward TJ Warren is not expected to play a significant minutes load this season.
Warren, who is playing in his first games since sustaining a stress fracture in his left foot that sidelined him for two seasons, is averaging 16 minutes per game in Brooklyn. He played 22 minutes in the Nets’ win over the Warriors on Wednesday.
“The goal is to have him healthy at the end of the year. And do I envision him playing 35 minutes? No. So I’ll say that,” Vaughn said. “I think we have enough depth on this team that he doesn’t need to do that. Do we want to continue to increase him that he’s playing in that range where he was tonight over consecutive days and building up his legs and strength to play in games? Yes. And to play back-to-backs going forward? Yes.
“So there’s a goal in sight. But we don’t need to play T.J. 35 minutes.”
Vaughn said the Nets are still trying to figure out how best to utilize Warren, who averaged 27 points per game in the 2020 Orlando Bubble before sustaining his injury. The Nets want to use him as scoring relief in the minutes Durant spends on the bench, but they also want to find ways to fold him into the offense with both Irving and Durant on the floor.
“It’s a little bit of both. My conversation with him actually today after the shootaround, I’m trying to find what unit suits him and his game,” Vaughn said after the game. “It’s interesting night without Ky; that changes the rotation a little bit. But we’ve done both where he plays with Kevin, so he’s got those minutes that we still want to have because he can space the floor and score. But then he started the second quarter for us which he hadn’t done before. So getting him in the mix with Ben [Simmons] to push the pace. We’re still trying to find the sweet spot for him.”
