NEW YORK — If you think Wednesday’s preseason showdown between the Nets and Milwaukee Bucks is going to be some massive showdown between two NBA championship hopefuls, here are three words:
Slow. Your. Roll.
For starters, the Bucks only returned home Sunday after playing two games in Abu Dhabi. They face the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday, making Wednesday’s matchup against the Nets the second game of a back-to-back.
That has “DID NOT PLAY — COACH’S DECISION” written all over it for Milwaukee’s key players, and the Bucks — who are 0-3 entering their Tuesday matchup against Chicago — don’t appear to be taking these exhibition games too seriously.
The Nets, however, don’t have that luxury.
Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter if it’s the Bucks, the Golden State Warriors, Orlando Magic or the Adelaide 36ers who are lining up on the other side of the halfcourt line. The Nets have work to do, and after two preseason blowout losses to conference foes in the 76ers and Heat, the Nets are trying to do as much of that work as they can before the games begin to count on Oct. 19.
That work, according to head coach Steve Nash, includes building the Brooklyn defense and finding both an identity and cohesion for an offense welcoming in new key players and new offensive sets.
“It’s one thing to do it in practice, it’s another thing to be out there playing against someone else,” Nash said after Tuesday’s practice at the HSS Training Facility in Industry City. “These are important games for us and we need all the time we can get.”
Nets star Kevin Durant characterized the four-game preseason slate as “just an assessment.” Durant said these exhibition games are “just reps for everybody to get in game shape” and opportunities to figure out which offensive sets the team can run for each different unit of players on the court.
“But there’s going to come a time when we are not playing great basketball for a spurt in the preseason, and there’s going to be times [where] we played great basketball,” he said after Tuesday’s practice. “We’re trying to play all together. It’s still early in the year. We want to be in great shape as the season goes, but we want to be our best version as the season starts progressing. We want to take our time now and keep working but have some sense of urgency as well. So it’s a balance.”
Durant said he doesn’t put too much stock in preseason games — especially when the team isn’t at full strength — but he knows these games mean a lot for a team still putting things together on the fly.
“We get a look and a gauge of who we are individually and what we can do: Is your shot feeling good? Is your handle feeling good? Is your wind up? And stuff like that,” he said. “So everybody felt good there, but it’s nothing we can really take from a preseason game when two of our starters ain’t play. So we will see how we go as these preseason games go, but the regular season is where we’ll be judged.”
