Mike D’Antoni watched the Brooklyn Nets’ loss to the Boston Celtics Monday night from his living room in Austin, Texas, a world away from the drama his protégé, Nets coach Steve Nash, had just been going through.
A year ago, D’Antoni sat alongside Nash on the Nets bench as the two-time MVP coached what will be considered one of the greatest teams never to be a shoe size away from the Eastern Conference Finals.
Nine years ago, D’Antoni sat on the Los Angeles Lakers bench for another notoriously tumultuous season when Nash, Kobe Bryant, Paul Gasol and Dwight Howard prevailed in the first round.
But this year, this Nets season, was like nothing D’Antoni had ever seen.
“The situation was just so strange,” he said. “When you throw all the things that happened to them this year… and then have to fight for their lives for a month just to get into the play-in game… I don’t think it’s weird that they fought. “
After it was all over in Brooklyn Monday night, the Nash and Nets superstars took turns at the podium, making similar references to the extrajudicial drama that overwhelmed the Nets this season and left them exhausted on every level by the end of it.
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Kyrie Irving called it “the polarization of the media crowd” and “noise”.
Kevin Durant referred to a lack of “continuity”.
Nash spoke directly about “all those things off the ground” and how they affected the team on the pitch.
“Our boys are finished,” Nash said. “You are tired.”
The final minutes of Monday’s game revealed everything.
With 2:45 to go and Boston at 109:103, Brooklyn led a massive break when referee Sean Wright ruled the sixth foul on Celtics star Jayson Tatum.
The next play, a resurgent Blake Griffin hit a crucial offensive rebound against Boston’s Al Horford, leading to a 3-pointer from Irving that cut the lead to three points. When Durant Jaylen Brown stole the ball and hit a 14-foot floater to reduce the lead to one with 1:28 left, it seemed like the momentum had swung toward Brooklyn.
But instead of redemption, the Nets found more despair in a season that marked her.
1:16
Kevin Durant reacts to how the Nets’ season ended and whether or not Steve Nash is the right coach for the future team.
Durant missed consecutive 3-pointers and an important free throw, Irving failed to unwrap Horford on an offensive rebound and putback after Griffin stopped Marcus Smart from converting a fast-break layup and all that was left to do was the end of the Game was handshakes and credit for the superior team in a series sweep.
Afterward, Durant was asked if he had any regrets about the season, the series, or the game.
“No regrets,” he shrugged. “S— happened. We’ve been through a lot this year. Everyone in the organization knows what we went through.”
Durant began listing things that happened to the Nets that season, but quickly lost interest in the synopsis: Irving’s struggles with the City of New York over their vaccination mandate, the James Harden deal, the uncertainty surrounding Ben’s back injury Simmons as well as his sanity, a COVID-19 outbreak, injuries, a lack of consistency and most importantly, camaraderie that proved impossible to develop.
“I wish we were healthier as a group,” Durant said. “I wish we had more continuity as a group. But that’s the league. Every team goes through it.”
He seemed both tired of talking about the drama and uninterested in apologizing. Injuries aside, Durant has been the Nets’ most consistent player.
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Only he knows how much physical and mental toll it took on him. On Monday night, he was in no mood to admit his fatigue or use that heavy burden as an excuse.
Nash, however, was blunt.
“As the season progressed,” Nash said. “There were just too many [things].” In many ways, the basketball world was conducting a season-long autopsy on what went wrong for the Nets.
But the premise of these analyzes is flawed.
It’s not about what went wrong with the Nets or what happened to them. It’s about the decisions that made these team- and culture-destroying issues possible in the first place.
Whether it’s Harden leaving the team and asking to be traded midseason, Irving being unable to attend games in New York City and Toronto due to his vaccination status, or even Simmons’ decision, after last season and one Tie a swap from Philadelphia to force a “ramp-up” process to play again that never came to fruition.
The Nets’ management and owners have tried to support their stars throughout the season. In general, Superstar players appreciate that kind of respect. But outside of Durant, the Nets’ superstars haven’t lived up to the homage paid to them, and that’s a problem for a team built as a star system.
Just think how much time and energy the Nets wasted on off-court matters that could have been spent on basketball. How many hours were spent discussing Irving’s vaccination status? How much energy went into thinking about what to do with Harden? How many hours were spent deciding whether Simmons would play in Game 4 versus how the Nets would adapt to the Celtics’ swarming defense?
1:07
Kyrie Irving admits his status has been a distraction for the Nets this season and remains adamant he will return to Brooklyn in the fall.
Irving alluded to the toll and his responsibilities after the game.
“It’s just been very emotional this season,” he said. “I felt like I was letting the team down at a point where I couldn’t play.
“I never want it to be about me, but I feel like it became a distraction at times.” Irving then reiterated the power he and Durant were given within the organization.
“When I say I’m here with Kev, it means we manage this franchise together — alongside Joe and Sean,” said Irving, referring to Nets owner Joe Tsai and general manager Sean Marks.
“We really need to be aware of what we’re building.”
Irving spoke of his motivation to build a better team and culture next season and not just rely on individual performance as the Nets have had to do so often this year. But he was clearly speaking as a star fully empowered by his franchise, which is great when things work out but awkward when they end as badly as the Nets’ season.
If this sounds familiar to you, this is it.
The West Coast version of the Nets — the Lakers — fizzled out the same way this season.
It’s ironic for a coach like Nash, who made his name as a player in a system as democratic as D’Antoni’s “Seven Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns, and a general manager like Marks, who grew up in the San Antonio culture heartthrob the Spurs to have built such a team.
Like everyone else, they will think about what they could and should have done differently. Then they’ll try again next season, hoping the lessons learned from that season will be meaningful.
“The difficult part is that we’ve all grown tremendously, we just haven’t been able to capitalize on that this year,” Nash said after the game. “Having gone through everything we’ve been through this year, saying goodbye is hard. Because we fought hard to stay together.”
Nasch is right. The nets fought. They just didn’t always fight the opponents on the ground.
For his part, D’Antoni still believes in Brooklyn’s superstar-packed roster.
“They haven’t seen anything they can do,” D’Antoni said. “It has to have a chance. But it’s New York, and New York is, ‘What did you do for me yesterday?’
“Hopefully they can do that.”