Kyrie Irving longs for Nets' Big Three to play together

The Nets have been close to unbeatable when Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving are on the court together, but that lineup hasn’t been seen much since the three stars teamed up last January. Irving tells Nick Friedell of ESPN that he thinks “daily” about how good the team could be if all three were playing on a regular basis.

“It’s not something that is shortsighted for us,” Irving said. “We think about the long term and how well we jell together as a trio. And when we say as a trio we’re not excluding anybody else on the team, but we just know that the energy runs through us, and when we’re flowing out there and we’re playing — I think James said it last year — there’s not a lot of teams that could be out on the floor with us that can match up very well with us.”

Of course, Irving is a major reason why the trio has barely been together this season. He has played in just nine games so far because of his refusal to comply with New York City’s vaccination requirement and the Nets’ reluctance to have him as a part-time player until their roster was decimated by the virus.

And to make matters worse for Brooklyn, Durant is set to miss several more weeks after he suffered a sprained MCL in his left knee. KD was averaging a league-high 29.3 points per game before he went down.

There’s more from New York:

• Nets coach Steve Nash is trying to keep his team focused through a slew of injuries and its longest losing streak in two years, per Brian Lewis of the New York Post. Brooklyn was on top of the East 11 days ago, but it’s in danger of moving down into play-in territory after dropping five straight games. “They haven’t dropped their heads because we’ve lost games. We’ve had a tough schedule with a lot of guys out of the lineup, and we can’t lose that connectivity and that energy and that spirit,” Nash said. “To me, there’s no moral victories, but we’re moving in the right direction.”
• Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s desire to keep Jalen Brunson through the trade deadline is bad news for the Knicks, contends Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. Brunson will be a free agent this summer, but he’ll reportedly be seeking about $80M over four years, which exceeds New York’s available cap space unless team president Leon Rose can clear out a few contracts. The Knicks need immediate help at point guard, but there are few good options on the market considering what they have to offer. Sources tell Bondy that New York is looking to unload Evan Fournier, Nerlens Noel, Alec Burks and Kemba Walker and hopes to create playing time for newly acquired Cam Reddish.
• With Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin and Quentin Grimes bypassed for the Rising Stars competition, it looks like the Knicks won’t have any representatives at All-Star Weekend, notes Marc Berman of the New York Post.