The Brooklyn Nets are starting to converge.
Having had some growing pains early on, they leave their longest road trip of the season to date a perfect 5-0. In the process, Brooklyn has started answering targeted questions about how good their defense must be to compete at the highest level. Their West Coast swing included wins over the Los Angeles Lakers and the LA Clippers – two teams at the top of the Western Conference standings that the Nets faced in the NBA Finals.
Brooklyn are returning home with their longest win of the season – and they’re doing without Kevin Durant, who is still dealing with a hamstring and has missed Brooklyn’s last four games.
“We came here with a plan to build something here in Brooklyn,” Kyrie Irving said after beating the Clippers 112-108 on Sunday night. “I think for now, if you win six in a row, keep the world a little quiet and then, you know, wait until we hit a bump in the road.”
Before the Nets started to win, their path was bumpy. They excelled against good teams, but struggled to beat the league’s sub-residents. Prior to this win streak, Brooklyn lost double digits to the Detroit Pistons. Nets players and coaches agree that this served as a turning point.
“We weren’t connected at all,” Irving said. “That was embarrassing. So we just want to continue to demand that standard of excellence.”
Now the Nets are 12-4 against teams who are .500 or better this season; according to ESPN’s Stats and Information study, that’s the best win rate (75%) in the league.
James Harden said he has seen a “day and night” difference in the hardness of the Nets from the time he joined the team in mid-January until now. Harden said the team is “playing hard” and “playing smart” at this point.
“We had a lot of frustrating losses,” said Harden. “We don’t want that to haunt us at the end of the season. So we decided to tackle it collectively as a team, each individual.”
The Nets will try to extend their win streak to seven on Tuesday against the visiting Kings, who beat Brooklyn in Sacramento on the team’s western trip.