Big comeback wins are cool and all, but that's not the Nets' ideal strategy
Kevin Durant #7 and Kyrie Irving #11 of the Brooklyn Nets against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on April 6, 2022. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The only thing that’s supposed to matter is the final score, right? After all, a one-point win and a 30-point blowout end up looking the same in the standings.
This may be true, but some key members of the Nets are a little uncomfortable with some of the close calls the team has been having down the stretch.
“It’s risky, I hate being down. I hate even being on that team,” Kevin Durant said after his team came back from a 21-point third-quarter deficit to beat the Knicks, 110-98, on Wednesday. “I don’t want that to be a part of who we are.”
That was the second time this season the Nets came back from a large disadvantage against the Knicks, having fought back from a 28-point deficit to win on Feb. 16.
It also was the second time in a month that the Nets have rallied to win after digging themselves a deep hole against an inferior team. On March 18, they had to rally from an 18-point third-quarter deficit to beat Portland, 128-123.
The Nets hope to avoid this Friday night against a Cavaliers team that is very capable of jumping out to a quick lead. On Nov. 17, the Nets had to rally back from a 21-point halftime hole to beat Cleveland, 109-99.
The Nets have every incentive to come out strong against the Cavaliers at Barclays Center considering that a win would give them the tiebreaker over Cleveland and put them in the driver’s seat as far as securing the No. 7 seed and homecourt in both the first, and if necessary, the second game of the play-in tournament.
The flip side of having so many big comeback games is that a team knows it has the ability to comeback from a bad situation.
“The satisfying part is knowing that we have this fight in us, we have what we have in the locker room, and we all believe and understand that we have what we need to get the job done on any given night, as well as knowing that we can be the last team standing,” Patty Mills said after the win over the Knicks.
While Nets coach Steve Nash would prefer not to live that dangerously, he said after the comeback against the Knicks that he was proud of the way his team reacted in the second half.
“Obviously at the end of the game we got separation but it’s such a fine margin sometimes when you have to dig out of a hole,” Nash said. “Things can go either way. They could have made the run at the wrong time and we couldn’t have got back. Fortunate. But we made the effort in the second half that it takes and played a much better game.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
