"We need to win. Of course I hope he plays, but he's not there and the game is definitely better. I hope his injury is treated in the best, but without him it would be less of a headache. ”
Durant was dressed casually, smiling and talking to the camera. He was on a podcast called Board Room and already knew that LeBron James was likely to miss the upcoming Lakenet battle due to an ingulin injury.
However, a few days later, when Durant walked to the bench on the sidelines and accepted the fact of losing early, he would definitely regret his rash statement - James did miss the game against the Nets due to injury, but Durant did not feel "easy" at all, and the Nets did not get the victory they needed.
Today, people's discussion point seems to have long shifted from the duel in Jandu's absence to the menacing two 50+ games in a single day...
Durant's Waterloo
The Lakers won! It was the Nets who won the last 5-4-1 Nets!
Suffering from a back injury, he played his toughest game of the season, finishing with 37 points and 18 rebounds, including 10 offensive rebounds.
Young Master Wei also brought endless energy from the bench, and although he didn't feel good, he still sent out a double-double of 14 points and 12 assists.
The Lakers also played excellent defensively, and with the team's efforts, limited Kevin Durant, who has been in hot form recently.
In the final decisive stage, in the face of the Lakers' strict defense, the former league solved the first man, missed three shots in a row, and then made another mistake, watching the difference in points on the court stretch from 4 points to 15 points. By the time he finally scored the first athletic goal of the quarter 3:57 before the end, the game had lost its suspense.
With back-to-back plays, Irving's suspension, Simmons' exit and Claxton also leaving the game injured midway, Durant clearly doesn't need to blame for this loss. However, the fatigue he showed in the game today is still not a small deviation from the image of death in our memory.
You know, the Nets are 4-1 without Irving, and with Simmons' current form, not playing is not necessarily a bad thing. But the opposite side is also missing their star LeBron James!
The absent Zhan Du showdown
In fact, when the NBA new season schedule was announced on August 18, many people took out the red pen for the first time to circle the day on November 14, mainly to enjoy the peak matchup between James and Durant again.
As Durant said, "Every time we have a chance to go head-to-head, it's an incredible moment for the NBA. Because a lot of fans grew up watching this kind of matchup, it must be fun to watch us play against each other again for different teams. ”
However, these two superstars, who once represented the highest level of the NBA, have "passed by" many times in recent years for various reasons, and the most recent head-to-head battle was the year-end battle in 2018. In that game, James withdrew early with a groin strain, and four years later, he missed today's highlight because of another injury in the same area.
Four years ago, Durant was a member of the Warriors, they were described as "space battleships", synonymous with invincibility, and James, who had just left the Cavaliers for the Lakers, also brought new hope to Angel City fans.
Four years later, Durant has already experienced a serious injury to a ruptured Achilles tendon, changed to a Nets jersey, and played several seasons of soap operas with Irving and Harden, and his good personal condition at the beginning of this season cannot hide his confusion about the future.
James has experienced the glory of returning to the top in these four years, but he has also experienced the lowest point of his career. The Lakers' struggles in the opening stages of the season led veteran teammate Richard Jefferson to say that "renewing the Lakers was the biggest mistake he made."
What about the Nets? Boss Cai showed a tough hand in handling the Irving incident, and the decision to change coaches also seemed to have some effect. But compared with previous championship expectations, they are only temporarily maintaining themselves, and maybe one day, Durant will change owners again actively or passively.
In fact, not only the Lakers, the Nets, even the Warriors, who regained the championship after four years last season, performed disappointingly in the first month of this season. Curry's return to his peak personal form contrasts sharply with the team's poor record (5-8 after today's loss to the Kings, just one place high on the Lakers).
This is James' 20th NBA season, and the steel bone, once known for its durability, has begun to have problems over the past few years. Since joining the Lakers, he has suffered multiple injuries in his groin, ankles, and knees, constantly setting his absence record, and now people are more worried about whether he can stay healthy on the court than the decline in athleticism. In just a few weeks since the start of the season, he has suffered from plantar fasciitis and groin injuries, and his form is significantly lower than last season.
Durant is a few years younger than James, but is also a 34-year-old veteran and has experienced devastating injuries. Of all the players in NBA history who has experienced an Achilles tendon rupture, no one has recovered better than him. However, he has missed a lot of games due to injury in the past two seasons, and the loss to the Celtics in the first round of the playoffs last season also showed his weakness.
Whose era is this?
In stark contrast to the lakenets' James injury stoppage and Durant's struggle, just hours earlier, Darius Garland had just posted his first 50+ of the season, and the 22-year-old young All-Star scored 27 points in the fourth quarter after the team trailed by 24 points.
Garland's record for a season-high score stood for just an hour before it was broken by Embiid. In the 76ers vs. Jazz game, Embiid gave the most personal heroism of the season, scoring 26 of the team's 27 points in the fourth quarter, also giving away 5 big hats, 59 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists and 7 blocks, truly beating a team by one person.
Such a performance should have been the "patent" of James and Durant, but now, it is rarely seen in them.
When Brother Alphabet led the Bucks all the way to triumph and won the MVP and DPOY rankings at the same time, when Doncic continued to break various records, repeatedly compared with the basketball god Jordan; When Mitchell, Tatum, Morant, and Alexander kill all sides and make people marvel and fearful, we always sigh with emotion: What happened to those who were once at the top of the league?
In fact, behind all accidents there is inevitability, the struggle of the Lakers and Nets, representing the reality that a generation is aging, and new forces have begun to take over the league. The NBA in front of us is changing from the former "three-legged" to "a hundred schools of thought". One era is coming to an end, and another era is slowly opening.
The 2012 NBA Finals was the 1.0 version of the Jamdu showdown, when Durant became famous and the Thunder had a promising future, but the older Durant's 4-year-old James, led the older Heat to the end.
The meeting of the two finals in 2017 and 18 is the 2.0 version of the Jamdu showdown, and behind the crushing of the Warriors' strength is the objective fact that Durant's comprehensive ability continues to improve and is enough to compete with James.
Later, James traveled west, Durant eastward, both wanted to build a career in a new place, but the expected 3.0 never came.
Durant said of the absence of the Jandu battle: "I hope that the next time I come to Brooklyn, he can play as scheduled, and we will have a good matchup."
His wish should not be difficult to fulfill, but the real sense of Jandu Showdown 3.0 - the reunion of two people on the stage of the finals, may never be staged again.