The streak continues.
Just an hour-and-change after the Nets officially announced James Harden’s trade to the Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn dropped its 10th straight game, this time in a 113-112 loss to the Washington Wizards.
The Wizards were without All-Star guard Bradley Beal, but got double-figure scoring games from seven of their players, including 21 points from Raul Neto and 45 points off the bench.
Meanwhile the Nets scrounged their team together in the aftermath of the Harden deal, and it was the Kyrie Irving and Cam Thomas show.
Irving scored a game-high 31 points, shooting 9 of 22 from the field. Thomas stepped into the starting lineup and scored 27 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the field. Blake Griffin and James Johnson were the only other two Nets to score in double figures as Brooklyn fell to a Wizards team that improved to four games below-.500.
“We didn’t get enough stops. Our defense was not good enough,” Nets coach Steve Nash said. “That’s the bottom line: We’ve gotta defend better.”
With Harden gone, the losing streak projects to carry into the mid-teens. The Nets travel to Miami next for a date with the East’s best: the Miami Heat. They then return home to host De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis’ new-look Sacramento Kings — a game Irving cannot play in due to New York City’s vaccine mandate — before playing at Madison Square Garden against the Knicks in another game Irving will miss.
That means we could see a 13-game skid heading into the All-Star break.
But for the Nets, it’s always been a next-man-up mentality in Brooklyn, and with Harden traded to Philly for Ben Simmons, nothing has changed.
Simmons is expected to join the Nets in Miami, as are Seth Curry and Andre Drummond, though none of them are expected to play against the Heat. The sooner the Nets can get all their pieces back on the floor, the better for a team that’s been battered by injury, yet still keeps the same championship aspirations they began the season with.
“I think we’ve always set our sights on (winning a championship),” Nash said postgame. “We’re not taking our foot off the gas.”
