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Lillard is a top 75 player all time and a lock future Hall of Fame who has not spent his career looking for a way out of town like so many stars doo, but rather looked for reasons to stay committed. New York got a good laugh on Wednesday out of the NBA’s “punishment” of taking away their 2025 second-round pick for tampering with Jalen Brunson (who has played like an All-Star this season and is well worth that pick). New York has won eight in a row and the biggest key is their defense, which is surrendering less than a point per possession in that stretch. It will be a little tougher to keep the red-hot 76ers under that number on Christmas Day, but if Brunson can spark the offense this will be one of the better games of the day. The Nets need a continued focus on basketball — just basketball, not the sideshow around this team. The drama has died down and Brooklyn has gone 12-3 since Kyrie Irving returned from his 8-game suspension, and over those 15 games it has a top-10 offense and defense.
As the Nets have stacked up wins, there have been discussions about them not beating the very best teams. There may be something to that, but not that much. You can only play who’s in front of you, and the Nets have been handling business like they’re supposed to. The next few games against the Warriors, Milwaukee Bucks, and Cleveland Cavaliers will be a great test of their recent improvements, and a good showing will give the fans even more optimism as we head in to 2023.
Injury Update: Kyrie Irving Suddenly OUT for Nets vs. Warriors
Typed comments will be lost if you are not signed in. The Nets have 11 back-to-backs this year. The first one takes place at the start of November when the Houston Rockets visit on the first of the month, then Brooklyn visits Little Caesars Arena to play the Detroit Pistons on November 2. The Nets have three back-to-backs in January and March. The Nets will not be featured on the Christmas Day slate of games, though the Knicks will come to visit on December 26.
NBA freelance writer Jared Dubin did some great analysis breaking down each team’s strength of schedule based on current Vegas over/under win projections. On Sunday, Durant scored 26 in the third quarter — including a furious run of 20 points in a three-minute span to pull the Nets from down 17 to striking distance. On a given night, he still rivals Giannis Antetokounmpo and Stephen Curry and anyone else as the best player in the game.
Try to extend season-high streak against defending champs
After a grueling stretch of games in the opening weeks of the regular season, the Nets (19-12) are clicking on all cylinders and have become one of the hottest teams in the league. If you want to watch the Nets in February, get comfy on the couch. Between a season-high eight road games for the month, plus the week-long All-Star break, the Nets will play just four home games in February, against Phoenix, Golden State, Toronto and Orlando. The second of Brooklyn’s four-plus game road trips also begins at the end of the month, taking them to Washington, Atlanta, Miami and Boston, and into March. Brooklyn’s longest stint away from Barclays Center will come in November, when the Nets will embark on a nine-day, five-game road trip, beginning on Friday, Nov. 8, at Portland and concluding on Saturday, Nov. 16, at Chicago. The Nets will play a season-high nine road games in the month of November.
Miami is home this week and needs to rack up some wins because a tough West Coast road trip follows. They will need to find that touch in the big Christmas Day showdown against the Bucks — Milwaukee is contesting better at the arc this season and that shooting is one of the big advantages for the Celtics in that matchup. The Celtics will also need the best of Williams on Christmas Day to match up with Brook Lopez, who has played well on both ends of the court recently.
American League
Jordan Poole helped the Warriors pick up their third road win of the season dropping 43 on the Raptors, but Golden State will need a few more nights like that — and maybe some improved defense — to keep its head above water with Curry out. What the Pelicans want for Christmas is Brandon Ingram back — he recently had a setback in recovery from his toe sprain and they have missed him and his shot creation during the current four-game losing streak. The most recent of those losses was to the Bucks in a game that showed the Pelicans what a contending team looks like mid-season, the level of talent and execution needed. New Orleans has 4-of-5 at home and they are riding a seven-game winning streak at the Smoothie King center.
DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine play next to each other, not with each other, on offense and the team’s defensive effort is often flat. Mavericks (15-16, LW 11). What Luka Doncic and the Mavericks need for Christmas — a second shot creator and scorer — is unlikely to be in Santa’s bag this time of year, and may be on backorder until next summer. Dallas will host LeBron James and the Lakers on Christmas Day, a winnable game since the Lakers will be without Anthony Davis. LeBron vs. Luka is a good headliner, but for all the knocks on the Dallas supporting cast it is better than what the Lakers roll out. If those other players can knock down a few 3-pointers, the Mavericks should pick up the win.
Over his last 11 games, he’s been in a groove that rivals some of his best work, averaging 32 points on 63% shooting, 43% from 3-point range and adding 6.5 rebounds and five assists per game. But Irving has been efficient since returning from his suspension following the promotion of an antisemitic film and subsequent comments, and Durant has been playing at an MVP-level all season. The preseason schedule was announced on July 10, 2019.
The Golden State Warriors are trying to repeat as NBA champions , but the road is a lot tougher this time around. The champs currently sit at after getting knocked around by the New York Knicks last night at MSG. They’re heading home after tonight to play the Memphis Grizzlies on Christmas night. On Sunday evening, the Detroit Pistons jumped out to an 18-point lead against the Brooklyn Nets and had Brooklyn all out of sorts.
They’re still the champs and it will take a great team effort to come away with a win tonight. They aren’t drawing a lot of headlines for potential trades, but this team could get their Christmas gift with some moves toward the future in February . The Pistons bench unit of Saddiq Bey, Alec Burks and Cory Joseph could draw some trade interest around the league, and you can be sure teams are calling about Bojan Bogdanovic.
The Nets play their first nationally televised game of the season during that early home stretch when they host the Houston Rockets on Friday, Nov. 1. That is one of 12 games currently scheduled to air on either ESPN or TNT. It’s tough when everyone’s chasing after you. The margin for error is thinner, teams give you their best shot every night, and getting back to the top of the mountain becomes even harder.
Durant passed two NBA legends, John Havlicek and former Net Paul Pierce, on the all-time scoring list Sunday, finishing with 26,437 career points. He is 61 behind Tim Duncan for 15th place. All nationally televised NBA games can be watched on Sling TV. While Poole hasn’t reached the level of fear Curry induces, he should be enough of a fear-generating machine to create workable advantages for the Warriors offense. The aforementioned shooting should comprise the main meat and potatoes of his ability to create advantages, but that has so far been more in theory than it has been in practice.
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