The Nets swallowed another humiliating defeat, and after four hard fights on the road, they finally lost to the Western Lotto Blazers 108-114, breaking a big upset. Despite Harden's absence due to injury, Irving's return from the road, the Nets with the Duo duo are still strong, and the opponent Blazers are currently ranked tenth in the West, Lillard, CJ McCollum, Powell and Nance Jr. 4 main players are absent, the Blazers are a set of residual teams, the strength is difficult to compare with the Nets, but it is precisely in the case of not being optimistic, with the excellent performance of a number of role players, completely tearing the Nets apart.
Durant played another 41 minutes after playing 43 minutes in the last game, while Irving, who returned to the second game, played 40 minutes, which shows how dependent Nash is on the stars. Although Durant cut 28 points, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and 1 block performance, but the fourth quarter of the offense repeatedly hit the iron, has fully exposed his physical problems, but Nash still handed the ball to Durant to single, there is no team cooperation at all. The team, both offensively and defensively, is very bad and is still a long way from being a real title favourite. Of course, behind the loss, the only thing worthy of the team's joy may be the outstanding performance of the two rookies after being reused.
Nash made a large rotation of the bench this game, and the rookies Thomas, Sharp and Edwards were reused, and the excellent performances of Thomas and Sharp, two rookies, also became a surprise for the Nets.
Thomas played 26 minutes off the bench, shooting 8-of-12, 4-of-7 from three-point range, 1-of-2 from the free throw line, cutting down 21 points, 3 rebounds and 3 steals, providing huge support to the big two on the offensive end, hitting key 3-pointers many times and giving the Nets hope.
Sharp, who is 2 meters 11 tall, rarely gets 24 minutes of playing time in this game, in the case of Ader's truce, Millsap is abandoned, Griffin's poor performance, Sharpe supported the Nets' penalty area very well, he shot 6 of 6, 2 of 3 free throws, and finally cut down 14 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 blocks of offensive and defensive all-round performance, the whole person's competitive state, beat the starting Clarkston, the basket finishing ability is even more incomparable to Clarkston.
I have to say that in this game, the two rookies jointly cut 35 points and 10 rebounds, which was impressive, in the past games, except for Thomas's occasional playing time, Sharp was almost a marginal player at the end of the rotation, even if the other interior veterans did not perform well, Nash was not willing to give Sharp a chance. But in this game, Sharp's performance completely hit Nash in the face, if Sharp was used earlier, maybe the Nets' internal problems would not be so serious.
For the Nets, the loss of this game is difficult to accept, but the game is over, and it doesn't make much sense to say anything other than to learn lessons. For Nash, after seeing Sharpe's performance and Griffin's heart-wrenching comparison of several consecutive attacks under the basket, perhaps next, the inner rotation position should really give Sharp more opportunities, and the youngster can bring more vitality to the inner line, so that their penalty area attack and defense will no longer become lifeless. When Harden returns, maybe he can make Sharp's performance further, just like Capela did.