The championship-or-bust Brooklyn Nets are on the brink of a calamitous first-round exit, as their 109-103 home loss to the Boston Celtics on Saturday night at Barclays Center has placed them in a huge and threatening 0-3 series hole. And their odds of winning four straight games and reaching the second round of the East playoffs seem insurmountable, considering how Kevin Durant has performed with their season hanging in the balance.
Boston's pressure-packed defense has mortalized the Nets' superstar scorer. Through three playoff games, Durant is shooting just 36.5-percent (19-of-52) from the floor with 17 turnovers, and his lack of flow on offense has hindered Brooklyn's attempts to recover. The Celtics' stifling gameplan -- coupled with stressful minutes logged late during the regular season -- has caused Durant to play below career averages, and there's no clear solution to the problem.
"KD needs to play like KD. A lot of this is, he's passing -- he's not aggressive. He was 6-of-11 in Game 3, 11 shots. That's just not Kevin Durant," Meadowlark Media NBA reporter Tom Haberstroh told Reiter Than You on Monday. "What's happening here is, he's making the 'right play' in a system that doesn't have a lot of right players... Durant's looking around him, passing, trying not to force up shots, getting high-quality looks. But, he needs those high-quality looks.
"Living in the mid-range and forcing up these shots isn't what he needs to be doing. He needs to be more active, getting low position on the block, taking three-pointers, getting to the free-throw line and to the rack. He's not doing that. He needs to assert himself, and not pass out of those situations... They tried to play him 40 minutes each night, because they were desperate... This is a product of weeks of Durant shouldering the burden of this team..."
Game 4 between the Nets and Celtics is scheduled for Monday in Brooklyn, with tipoff at 7 p.m. ET. According to FiveThirtyEight's projections, the Nets have less than a 1-percent chance to win the opening-round series, and the NBA is the lone major North American sport with a seven-game postseason series where no team has ever overcome an 0-3 deficit.
The entire NBA playoffs conversation between Haberstroh and Reiter can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow the Reiter Than You show on Twitter @sportsreiter and @CBSSportsRadio, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.