Josh Boone is out tonight for the Nets with a sore left knee although the MRI found nothing seriously wrong.
And Chris Douglas-Roberts will miss his third straight game with a sprained right ankle.
“He is going to try to practice a little tomorrow, see where he is. He hasn’t really scrimmaged,” Kiki Vandeweghe said of CD-R.
The usual infirmed – Jarvis Hayes (hamstring) and Eduardo Najera (back) – also will be sidelined when the Nets face the 15-14 Thunder. Rafer Alston (back), though, should be available.
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The Thunder is 15-14. Nets only have two wins — neither against a winning team (0-18 vs. teams at .500 or better). And the Nets are 0-5 against teams that have two words in their location name (New York, Los Angeles, Golden State); 0-4 against teams whose nickname doesn’t end in “S” (Jazz, Magic, Heat); 2-28 when they play on a day that ends in “ay.” But they are 2-0 when they have more points than the opposition.
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A loss tonight would give the Nets their fourth season in team NBA history with two separate 10-game losing streaks. And it would be the first time they’ve done so since 1989-90 when the group that finished an all-time franchise worst 17-65 had streaks of 14 and 11 losses (plus another of nine).
The Nets also had two double-digit skids in 1987-88 when they suffered streaks of 11 and 15 defeats before finishing 19-63 and in the first NBA season of 1976-77 when they had losing streaks of 13 and 12 enroute to a 22-60 record.
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If it ain’t broke…
Kevin Durant’s jumper is hardly textbook. Some might say ugly. But Kiki Vandeweghe, he of the enviable form, sees little wrong because of one major reason.
“It tends to go in,” Vandeweghe said. “I like that.”
“To me, the important thing is coming through in the right position,” Vandeweghe explained as he gave visual examples. “He comes through where his shoulder, hand and elbow are all aligned…It starts out (misaligned) but as he shoots. He comes in. Every single good shooter comes through that position and finishes the same way.”
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It’s no longer a trend. It’s become a way of life. The Nets lose on the glass. They have now been outrebounded in 18 straight games. The ghastly numbers in that stretch: 820-680 or 45.6 to 37.8 per.
“It’s not just one guy,” Vandeweghe said. “Last game, I thought it was more our perimeter players than our big players. The game before was more our bigs. It’s got to be a concerted effort from everybody and it’s a point of focus for us.”