Nets have been stymied early by rash of injuries, tough schedule

In an opening stretch where nothing has come easy, the Nets continued the unfortunate trend – the schedule remained unrelenting, and the injury updates remained vague, if unencouraging.

Ben Simmons, Cam Thomas and Dennis Smith Jr. will all not travel with the team for their game against the 6-6 Hawks Wednesday, and though coach Jacque Vaughn had no official medical update on Simmons, he confirmed that the Nets’ biggest weapon hasn’t progressed to on-court work.

“He’s just still doing what he was doing as far as off the court stuff, but not in practice or anything of that nature,” Vaughn said of Simmons, who has a lower left back nerve impingement and has missed half of the Nets’ 12 games this year.

Dennis Smith Jr., who’s also dealing with a back injury, was scheduled to have an MRI after practice Tuesday after not responding well enough to treatment, Vaughn said. If there was a shred of hope, it was that Thomas “is headed in the right direction” with his left ankle sprain, Vaughn said.

Vaughn added that there would likely be a further update on Thomas Wednesday. A more detailed Simmons update should be forthcoming in the next few days.

Asked if Smith’s injury had progressed since the point guard was forced to sit out Sunday, Vaughn pointed at “the fact that he’s not playing.”

“That’s kind of our steps a little bit,” Vaughn said. “You let a guy get clinically diagnosed, you hope it’s an acute [rather than chronic] injury, then you see if he can get some treatment and get back on the floor. Well, we had a couple days of treatment and he’s not back on the floor. So, then we’ll take the next step and get an MRI.”

And while all teams deal with injuries, there’s no doubt that this amalgam has forced the Nets to shift their on-court identity: They’ve struggled in transition, their vaunted defense has faltered of late, and they’ve been forced into a halfcourt game against more physical teams.

The result is a 6-7 record and a two-game losing streak, with the eighth-worst defensive rating in the league - this, with Trae Young and Dejounte Murray waiting for them in Atlanta.

Injuries can also affect team chemistry, Royce O’Neal said, “but I mean, that's the good part of being a team. You know, [the] next guy is always ready to step up. So, I think injuries are part of the game. You wish they don't happen, but just, when they do happen, who's going to take the next jump? We got to continue to carry the momentum.”

The dire state of the injury report has at least allowed Vaughn to try different combinations – something he hopes will benefit the Nets if (or when) they get healthy.

“We’re figuring things out along the way,” Vaughn said. “Whether that is putting a guy like Trendon Watford in as our backup point guard and letting him figure out how he can impact the game, whether it’s Day’Ron [Sharpe] and Nic [Claxton] in at the same time for a possession the other day and seeing whether we can be big and get a stop...So, those opportunities wouldn’t present themselves if we had those other guys available. Now, I do want them available. That makes us whole and healthy and I look forward to that. But I think you just try to figure things out. You stay in this space right here, see and see how you can get the most out of this group."

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.