Brooklyn Nets’ Kevin Durant injured with left thigh contusion
The Brooklyn Nets have announced that Kevin Durant suffered a thigh contusion during the first quarter of their Sunday afternoon game vs the Miami Heat. Durant, who had just returned to Brooklyn’s starting lineup last week, collided with Trevor Arizona on a drive to the basket.
Durant started the game hot by scoring 8 points in the first, but after the collision quickly returned to the locker room. It wasn’t too long after Durant’s trip to the locker room that the Nets ruled him out for the remainder of Sunday afternoon’s game.
After the game, Head Coach Steve Nash met with the media and said that Durant would be re-evaluated on Monday.
“He’s sore,” Nash said. “But we don’t know how severe. We’ll see tomorrow how he wakes up and go from there.”
If Durant is to miss significant time, it would be another huge blow for the Nets who have struggled to have their core of Irving, Durant and Harden on the floor at the same time. Many pundits have argued that the Nets stars haven’t had enough playing time to establish chemistry leading into a stacked playoffs.
“Any time one of our teammates goes down, any time something like that happens, it’s definitely going to take a hit for us,” Nets guard Kyrie Irving said. “And he’s just gotten back. We just pray that it’s not too serious and he’s able to recover, but it definitely has a hit on our continuity at times.”
Kevin Durant injured vs the Heat
image credit: cbssports.com
Brooklyn Nets have been missing Kevin Durant and James Harden on the court
To add insult to injury, The Nets have been without star shooting guard James hard for nearly two weeks with a hamstring strain. The Nets’ Big Three, have only played seven games together on the court during the 2021 season.
“We’ve had plenty of guys out of the lineup. … Nothing new for us,” Nash said.
“When they do come back,” Green said, “we’ve just got to prepare ourselves for what is going to be the next plans for — whether that’s the next 10 games at the end of the season or come playoffs, so when everybody’s healthy that’s when we’ll look down the road and see what we got to go up against.”
