After 294 days, standing in the Barclays Center Arena again, perhaps the gods will also be nervous, and between the excitement, Irving's first five shots, all hit the iron, the sixth three-point shot, the ball swung slowly before finally falling into the basket.
Irving made his home debut this season, and he had 16 points, 2 rebounds and 11 assists, which was far from the previous 50+ explosion performance. This should have been a game that Irving had proved himself, but the crotch-pulling feel of the shot not only made the Nets lose the eighth position in the East, but also made everyone question how far the Nets could go with the firepower of the two guns alone.
After 294 days, Irving returned home
"It's always felt so good to be home, it always felt so good to be home." Before the game against the Hornets, Owen was dressed in black, wearing sunglasses, and under the flash, Owen said to himself as he walked. Finally, one day, Irving did not have to watch his teammates play in the stands, nor did he have to worry about entering the locker room and being fined by the league, these 294 days, Irving waited too long, the Nets also waited too long.
You can think about what people expected from the Nets last summer, Harden, Durant, Irving, the three top stars on the same team, as long as they stay healthy, it is basically the finale. After all, in last year's playoffs, Durant plus half Harden, many people think that they are one toe away from the championship.
The Big Three have behaved like that in their first year, and the Nets aren't just looking at the 2022 championship, they're even planning a triple crown last offseason to build a dynasty team. After the renewal of Durant, the Nets general manager began to negotiate with Harden and Irving non-stop, but at this time, the vaccine problem became the biggest obstacle to the Nets' championship, Irving could not play in New York, and the team's grand plan for the whole season was instantly disrupted.
From a championship favorite to a play-off team, Irving himself admits that the Nets are performing now, and he has a lot of responsibility. At the beginning, the Nets chose to let Irving take a complete truce, and then under the pressure of the record and players, Irving became a part-time player, and so far this season, Irving has played a total of 22 games. As the core of the team, Irving only played such a little game, which means that there is a lack of running-in between him and the whole team, which means that the team constantly needs to adjust the lineup and adjust tactics.
Spitting on Nashmunne after the loss seems to have become a habit for many Nets players. But the team's frequent personnel changes, letting superstars hold the ball, and relying on stars to drive the whole team may indeed be the most suitable tactics for the Nets. This season, the Nets singles frequency league first, this way, when the superstar feels the blow, it is quite explosive, this year Irving, Durant have 50+ super performance. But when the star players are absent, or are not in good shape, it is also quite crotch-pulling.
During this long wait of 294 days, Irving's biggest impact may be James Harden's departure. Seeing that Irving can finally play full-time, it is estimated that many people will go to the live broadcast room in Philadelphia to taunt Harden. Now, teammates who once played side by side may become opponents, and if the Nets eliminate Philadelphia in the playoffs, Harden's entire career may bring a rotten stalk of "applying for a trade".
From Harden's perspective, you can understand his decision. After all, Irving's delay in vaccing, when he will be able to play in the home game, everything is unknown, playing a game or not, it may indeed make people complain. Don't forget, Irving and Durant have already won the championship trophy, but Harden is still empty-handed in this regard. It can only be said that Harden made a big bet on his life choices, but it is too early to draw conclusions about whether to win or lose.
For the Nets, Irving's return doesn't just mean a return to their home strength. The bigger point is that they finally don't have to be bothered by the bad things on the sidelines. You can think about it, the biggest concern for the Nets throughout the season may not be how good their record is, not how good Durant is, but when Irving will be in the home team locker room and when he will choose to be vaccinated. When the core of the Nets, fully engaged in the court, the Nets can be regarded as the real meaning of the matter of the championship competition.
Full-time return to the Nets to win the championship?
Shooting 6-of-22 from the field and 1-of-9 from three-point range, the Nets eventually lost the game, and Irving dedicated his worst shooting performance of the year to the long-awaited Nets fans. The outcome of a battle of focus being fought so hard is not unexpected. Yesterday's game, they just beat the Heat on the road. After the game, when Durant and Irving were bathing in victory, the Hornets players had already arrived in Brooklyn to wait.
Since Irving only started playing for the Nets in the second half of the game, he could not play at home before, which means that Irving's game does not feel particularly coherent, especially back-to-back games. Before the game against the Hornets, Irving played only one back-to-back second game, and in that game, in the 37-minute playing time, Irving shot 5 of 15, only 14 points, 3 rebounds and 1 assist, shooting only 33.3% from the field.
The game with the Hornets proved the problem again, and today's game, Irving made people feel that they lacked a spirit. In the fourth quarter, Irving singled against Thomas Jr. with the ball, only to be forced by his opponent to make a 24-second offensive violation. This kind of picture is not common for Owen, who claims to attack the kaleidoscope.
However, as the king of the fourth quarter of the league this season, the man who can average 9.1 points per game in the final quarter looks crazy off the court, but Irving on the court is really sober. With 5 minutes and 15 seconds left in the final quarter, Irving singled the ball and began to choose more options to break through the basket and score four consecutive offensive points, which you might have thought would be an Irving home debut and the story of the old master in the final quarter.
I have to say that Irving's offensive ability to hold the ball is really strong. Irving not only has a large number of singles with the ball, but also takes into account efficiency. Over the past two seasons at the Nets, Irving has shot more than 60 percent of his true shots and more than 30 percent of his singles with the ball, but has a turnover rate of less than 10 percent. In the past 40 years, only two players have performed this way, Leonard in 2016-17 and 2018-19, and Michael Jordan in 1987-88, 1989-90 and 1990-91.
When Irving and Durant are on the floor, the Nets have two of the league's top scorers, in this case, the Nets' 100-round offensive efficiency has reached 128 points, and the Jazz, who currently ranks first in the league, only has 116.1 points. But the question is, of the two superstars, what will the Nets do if Irving doesn't feel good and Durant has a physical crisis.
The nets and hornets in the last quarter of the game, basically Irving finished Playing Durant, if Durant and Irving did not have a chance, then switch to Seth Curry to play. The Hornets are not the league's top defensive powerhouse, they don't have top defensive tops, and their defensive efficiency is only ranked 23rd in the league. But in the playoffs, the Nets' opponent is not the Hornets.
Among the Eastern Conference giants, Boston is currently no. 1 in the league in defensive efficiency, fifth in the Heat defensive league, and ninth in the Philadelphia League, while the Bucks have alphabet brothers, Holliday, and they have experience playoffs against the Nets. That's why Irving is fully back, and the Nets' chances of winning the title haven't improved significantly.
In the five thirty eight website's predictions, the Nets now have a 77 percent chance of playoffs, with only a 1 percent chance of winning a title as the Dallas Mavericks, while the three teams with the highest odds of winning a championship are the Green Army's 34 percent, the Suns' 19 percent and the Bucks' 14 percent.
Irving is full-time and can solve many offensive problems for the Nets, but Irving has never been a very reliable player on the defensive end. When Irving played this season, the Nets conceded 115.3 points per 100 rounds, ranking 28th in the league, but when Irving came off the field, the Nets' 100-round loss would increase to 111.2 points.
You've all heard the saying that offense is the best defense, but on the basketball court, it doesn't fully apply. In today's game, the Nets gave the opposing team's number one core, Lamelo Ball, a comprehensive stat of 33 points, 7 rebounds and 9 assists. When the ball is blocked, Irving, as a defender, the Nets conceded 1.06 points per game, the league counts down. Of course, the Nets may not have placed their defensive hopes on Irving from the beginning of the team. But no team in the last 20 years of championships has been less defensively efficient than the league's 11th place.
In general, the coach's coaching style may contribute to the formation of the team's defensive system. But Nash is clearly not a coach of that style, and in the Suns era, Nash's team's defensive efficiency has never been in the league's top 15. The last team to win the championship was the Lakers in 2001, but the Lakers were the defending champions at the time, with the peak O'Neal.
They didn't play seriously in the regular season, ranking 22nd in the league in defensive efficiency, the same ranking as the Nets this season, but in the playoffs, the Lakers pressed the 100-round loss points to 97.9 points, and finally won the championship with 15 wins and 1 losses. Irving's full-time return is obviously not a concept with the Lakers' full-time efforts.
Nets fans are likely to pin their hopes on Ben Simmons, who has made the best defensive team in the past two years. But the problem is that Ben Simmons is still recuperating from his injury, and no one knows whether he can play in the playoffs, and if he returns, ben Simmons is in a good state, and whether his "psychological problems" will recur in the playoffs.
Irving's full-time return is only the first step for the Nets to get back on track, the two top muskets combined, any team does not want to touch them, but just Irving and Durant, it seems that the Nets laugh to the end.
in Kelsang