GT: Pelicans @ Nets: Wed. 4/7/21 - 7:30 PM ET - YES2 & ESPN - KD is Back!

[Whiskey Slick]

The Good News: This will reportedly be the return of Kevin Durant.

The Bad News: James Harden is out for 10 days to 2 weeks, which probably means 3 weeks to a month.

Why can't we ever get the BIG 3 on the court at the same time?

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[Prokorov]

Pumped to have KD back. But hope they dont over do it. the win is meaningless. KD should play about 18 minutes and 0 in crunch time where it gets more physical

6 minutes to start.
6 minutes to close the third
6 more to open the second half

another set back probably means missing playoff games. so need to ramp him back up slowly

[ecuhus1981]

The Pels are weird.

They seem to lose 1/2 of the games they're supposed to win, and win 1/2 of the games they're supposed to lose. They don't defend cohesively, and can struggle from long range. However, they're aggressive in passing lanes and love to make teams pay in transition.

They're awful on the road, and just got taken to the woodshed by Atlanta last night, 2 things that bode well for us. I am curious to see how we scheme for Zion. He is not your typical 1-dimensional low post scorer, although he of course does that at an extremely efficient level. He's also their primary playmaker now, so it will be interesting to see how we guard him. I would love to see a healthy dose of Claxton at the top of the key whenever Williamson runs the show. Over-utilizing Blake or Jeff for that defensive assignment would be a miscue.

Kevin returns tonight, I'm glad. I hope he's hungry. Kyrie is heating up and showing selfless leadership. All due respect to New Orleans, we don't need much from the rest of the team. Keep our defensive connectivity, box out your man when a shot is in the air and hit some open 3's, let's not make this a nail biter. Go Brooklyn!

[Prokorov]

The Pels are weird.

They seem to lose 1/2 of the games they're supposed to win, and win 1/2 of the games they're supposed to lose. They don't defend cohesively, and can struggle from long range. However, they're aggressive in passing lanes and love to make teams pay in transition.

They're awful on the road, and just got taken to the woodshed by Atlanta last night, 2 things that bode well for us. I am curious to see how we scheme for Zion. He is not your typical 1-dimensional low post scorer, although he of course does that at an extremely efficient level. He's also their primary playmaker now, so it will be interesting to see how we guard him. I would love to see a healthy dose of Claxton at the top of the key whenever Williamson runs the show. Over-utilizing Blake or Jeff for that defensive assignment would be a miscue.

Kevin returns tonight, I'm glad. I hope he's hungry. Kyrie is heating up and showing selfless leadership. All due respect to New Orleans, we don't need much from the rest of the team. Keep our defensive connectivity, box out your man when a shot is in the air and hit some open 3's, let's not make this a nail biter. Go Brooklyn!

They are an up and down team that plays hard. we employ a ton of older slower front court players. outside of claxton we have no rim protector... other then a couple blake charges which certainly help. I dont expect a ton of minutes from KD or him being on the floor much.

We probably go small a ton because going big does us no favors. their size is better then ours. Adams/Zion/Ingram are not going to be phased by LMA/Blake.

I expect alot of lineups like:

Kyrie | Harris | TLC (yuck) | Brown | Green

[Whiskey Slick]

I expect alot of lineups like:

Kyrie | Harris | TLC (yuck) | Brown | Green

I can't see anyway TLC starts.

If I had to cut TLC or Alzie and those were my only two choices, I would cut TLC.

My starting lineup tonight:

Kyrie | Brown | Harris | Green | Claxton

But I suspect Nash will start LMA and bring Claxton in off the bench, his usual M.O. since LMA got here.

[CalamityX12]

Definitely monitor KDs minutes...

Don't even tempt it

[Claud]

Knowing Nash he'll play KD 35+ minutes

FINALLY WE GET TO SEE CLAXTON/KD pairing which has me HYPE .

Sucks the beard got injured, but honestly he was getting run down by our coaching staff.

I'd rest him as much as possible until the playoffs. He should take 1 month off at least.

I honestly don't care if we finish with the top seed or 3rd.. makes no difference to us. We'll cook whoever is in the way.

Pels are a talented team on paper but they play **** defense and their pieces don't mesh well(BI, Zion, Lonzo, etc)

I expect another W.

[Papi_swav]

This should be a fun game, I love watching Zion play and Ingram if he's playing. Other than those 2 nobody else scares me on this team. They don't have good depth. We should win this even without KD. But yea KD shouldn't play more than 15-20 mins. I think DJ should get some mins, I don't think it's right to just straight up DNP him the rest of the way. he hasn't been terrible, I think he can pay at least 12 mins.

[Whiskey Slick]

Pumped to have KD back. But hope they dont over do it. the win is meaningless. KD should play about 18 minutes and 0 in crunch time where it gets more physical

6 minutes to start.
6 minutes to close the third
6 more to open the second half

another set back probably means missing playoff games. so need to ramp him back up slowly

We can't mess this up. If he re-injures that Hammy and is done for the playoffs, so are we. We'll make the playoffs regardless, but we can forget about a championship and that's what we're shooting for here.

[Kiddlovesnets]

The Pelicans are playing a back to back game, shouldnt they be sitting Zion for tonight's game? I hope they do.

[sashaturiaf]

So KD is finally back in a nets uniform. Barclays is going to erupt. Can't wait to see him out there again and as well as we've played without him, that's our #1 guy and no one is close to providing what KD can provide us.

Zions a beast and I don't think he is stoppable so we just have to be prepared to let him get his. If Ingram is back as well thats a dangerous team
Pels however give up the most 3s in the league and have awful depth (made worse by the fact they have a longer injury report than us at the moment). This will be one where we'll really miss Shamet and TJ.

Win or lose all I want is to see KD looking 100% out there, and definitely no more injuries.

[ducler]

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[MrDollarBills]

Give me Kyrie/Brown/Harris/Durant/Aldridge to start with Claxton, Green, TLC, Blake, some sweet sweet Alize and 10 mins or so from Cheese.

[Prokorov]

I expect alot of lineups like:

Kyrie | Harris | TLC (yuck) | Brown | Green

I can't see anyway TLC starts.

If I had to cut TLC or Alzie and those were my only two choices, I would cut TLC.

My starting lineup tonight:

Kyrie | Brown | Harris | Green | Claxton

But I suspect Nash will start LMA and bring Claxton in off the bench, his usual M.O. since LMA got here.

He wont start.... durant will. but just like the knicks game I think Nash will go small alot. TLC didnt start the knicks game but he did play 32 minutes.

Claxton seems like he will be out of the rotation once KD is back full time (which i dont agree with)

[Prokorov]

Knowing Nash he'll play KD 35+ minutes

FINALLY WE GET TO SEE CLAXTON/KD pairing which has me HYPE .

Sucks the beard got injured, but honestly he was getting run down by our coaching staff.

I'd rest him as much as possible until the playoffs. He should take 1 month off at least.

I honestly don't care if we finish with the top seed or 3rd.. makes no difference to us. We'll cook whoever is in the way.

Pels are a talented team on paper but they play **** defense and their pieces don't mesh well(BI, Zion, Lonzo, etc)

I expect another W.

I dont think we will see Claxton/KD. Blake is back playing tonight.

Clax played only 15 minutes last game with no Blake/KD
Clax played only 8 minutes the game before when Blake was active

[Paradise]

Tonight should be awesome.

- First time ever we will see KD, Griffin, Aldridge all on the same court.

- First time ever KD will play in front of NY fans finally.

- First time ever KD faces Zion.

- Zion’s first NBA game in NYC.

[Prokorov]

Knowing Nash he'll play KD 35+ minutes

FINALLY WE GET TO SEE CLAXTON/KD pairing which has me HYPE .

Sucks the beard got injured, but honestly he was getting run down by our coaching staff.

I'd rest him as much as possible until the playoffs. He should take 1 month off at least.

I honestly don't care if we finish with the top seed or 3rd.. makes no difference to us. We'll cook whoever is in the way.

Pels are a talented team on paper but they play **** defense and their pieces don't mesh well(BI, Zion, Lonzo, etc)

I expect another W.

To be honest bad defense vs. us isnt really a disadvantage. our offense is so good that we are drop 120+ on everyone. I think its actually a tougher matchup for us for teams that run and just spend all there energy on scoring and hustle.

[Prokorov]

Give me Kyrie/Brown/Harris/Durant/Aldridge to start with Claxton, Green, TLC, Blake, some sweet sweet Alize and 10 mins or so from Cheese.

In an ideal world:

Kyrie | Brown | Harris | KD | Clax or Blake

Dont love this matchup for LMA. Adams is a rock. they wont require doubles on LMA in the post and Adams is spry enough to close out. Defensively we need rim protection and guys who can move their feet.

[Hello Brooklyn]

We were so bad earlier in this season with KD/Kyrie and no Harden. Hoping we have figured it out.

We need to keep winning till Harden comes back.

[Prokorov]

We were so bad earlier in this season with KD/Kyrie and no Harden. Hoping we have figured it out.

We need to keep winning till Harden comes back.

To be fair, ALOT has changed since then:

Levert, Prince, Allen --> Out

TJ, Claxton, Blake, LMA --> In

Shamet decided not to stink anymore

More time for role players to play together.

Defense time to gel together