Getty James Harden of the Brooklyn Nets celebrates during a game against the Miami Heat.
Brooklyn Nets Star James Harden has been away from the team for over a month after suffering a hamstring injury against the New York Knicks on April 5. Harden was viewed as one of the NBA’s leading candidates for the league’s Most Valuable Player award before the injury. The Nets have a record of 27-7 when Harden plays and that record dwindles to just 11-11 when he is not on the floor.
Harden was originally dated to return to the floor last month but suffered a setback during his on-court rehab on April 21 that ruled him out indefinitely by the Nets medical staff. On Wednesday, ‘The Beard’ finally got a date for when he could return to the court.
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Harden Expected to Return Wednesday vs. Spurs
Harden is expected to suit up on Wednesday, when the Nets take on the San Antonio Spurs. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, ‘The Beard’ has been officially listed as probable on the Nets injury report.
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Steve Nash and Kyrie Sound off on the State of Nets Locker Room
The Nets had one of their biggest comeback wins of the season on Saturday, defeating the Nuggets 125-119 after trailing by as many as 21 points in the contest. The Nets came out of the locker room, a seemingly different team in the second half, but Nets’ head coach Steve Nash insists that the team didn’t do anything different coming out of the locker room. Brooklyn’s come from behind victory was all-about the Nets willingness to work together as a team.
“We didn’t change anything. We just worked together and worked harder. There was less doubt,” Nash said after the Nets win over the Nuggets via NetsDaily.
“Sometimes that’s the benefit of being down is you don’t have time to analyze or doubt. You just got to play hard and pick it up, It was a great effort from the guys in the second half.”
While Nash may have not changed anything for the Nets from a coaching standpoint, players such as Nets’ All-Star Kyrie Irving take getting embarrassed on an opponents floor personally. After already coming into the matchup with the Nuggets as the losers of four straight games, going into the half down 13 points, woke up a sense of pride in the Nets.
“The energy in the locker room has changed drastically since we started the game. I’ll tell you that. Just coming out and getting embarrassed like that on someone else’s home floor for the third consecutive game, giving up 30+ points in the first quarter, and then climbing out of a hole,” Irving said after Saturday’s win via NetsDaily.”Coming out of halftime, we just intensified our effort on both ends of the floor, we just had to withstand a lot of their runs.”
Coming off of a win last night in Chicago it will be interesting to see if we finally get to see Harden, Kyrie, and KD take the floor together on Wednesday in the second half of a back-to-back.
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