If history can predict the future, the Brooklyn Nets' hopes of celebrating their first championship this summer will be dashed this week. In the history of the NBA playoffs, no team facing an 0-3 deficit in a best-of-seven series has ever rallied to win four consecutive games. And these title-or-bust Nets are one of the latest victims to fall into the hole, encountering insurmountable first-round odds against the Boston Celtics.
Although Brooklyn has lost all three games by single digits and held fourth-quarter leads twice, their offensive rhythm has been stymied by the Celtics' defensive pressure and physicality. In the Nets' 109-103 loss in Game 3 over the weekend, Nets superstar tandem Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving scored a combined 32 points on just 12-of-28 shooting. And in the fourth quarters of Games 2 and 3, they shot a measly 3-of-14, for 14 points. Boston has raised the intensity level, and Brooklyn has failed to make necessary adjustments.
"I think cohesion is going to be the new buzzword. And finding your stars and sticking with them, as opposed to taking on the mercenaries, over and over," Maggie Gray explained during Maggie and Perloff on Monday. "It's impossible to throw these stars together, have a part-time player, and think you can have any kind of rhythm and then just roll out there... This is how we trick ourselves into thinking superstars can do anything, singlehandedly take over the NBA..."
"When James Harden, Irving, and Durant got there, it was a championship or bust. But now -- and I should've realized this then -- those are broken parts," Andrew Perloff said. "Two very broken parts. Harden: incredibly broken. And Irving's a broken part... I just don't think that Durant has it anymore -- I think it's over... What's the window? He's going to be 34 next year. Can he be the star 1-A player? You see it, he just doesn't have the physicality to dominate."
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 now have less than a 1-percent chance to win the series. Before the regular season began in October, Brooklyn was given a 14-percent chance to make its first NBA Finals since 2003, and a 7-percent chance to win the title.
Maggie and Perloff's complete thoughts on the Nets' playoff swoon can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow the Maggie and Perloff Show on Twitter @MaggieandPerl and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.