Nets Fall to Bucks With Irving Nowhere in Sight

The Bucks played like a team familiar with one another, starting mostly the same players who formed the core of the lineup that led the franchise to a championship last season. Three of Milwaukee’s best players — Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez — are in their fourth year of starting together. The Nets, meanwhile, began with a lineup of players who are still getting acquainted, and nearly everyone who received significant minutes off the bench was a new addition this season.

“They’ve got some continuity that a lot of teams don’t have,” Durant said knowingly of the Bucks.

The lineup the Nets expected to run out was supposed to feature a murderers’ row on offense, a wealth of options who would allow Nash more flexibility to manage the minutes of Durant and Harden. Instead, with Irving absent, the Nets kept one of either Durant or Harden on the floor at all times on Tuesday to generate offense.

The Nets only sporadically looked fluid, something that surely would have been helped with the skills of an exceptional point guard and shooter like Irving.

Without him, the mantra from the Nets afterward was that the loss to the Bucks was one game of many, and that cohesion will come. The Nets have to build chemistry almost from scratch, while Milwaukee’s mission is to maintain the already developed core.

“We know what level we’ve got to get to,” said Harden, who finished with 20 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists. “We will get to that level. It’s Game 1 of a new season.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/sports/basketball/nets-bucks-kyrie-irving.html