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The Sixers won’t see either of the Nets’ two main stars in Brooklyn.
Kyrie Irving will miss Thursday night’s game against the Sixers for personal reasons.
Nets head coach Steve Nash has said Irving’s pre-game absence was a “private matter” and he currently doesn’t know how long he will be away as he has yet to spoke with Irving.
Kevin Durant will not play after being exposed to COVID-19 and forced to self-quarantine.
Seth Curry, who scored 28 points Wednesday for the Sixers and is shooting 59.5 percent from three points, is absent with a pain in his left ankle. Sixers head coach Doc Rivers said Curry injured his ankle on Wednesday and believed it was a “daily” injury.
Irving and Durant would have posed interesting challenges for the Sixers’ defense, which is still ranked No.1 in the NBA, according to Cleaning the Glass, after giving up 136 points to the Wizards on Wednesday. The Sixers managed to win despite Bradley Beal’s career-high 60 points, although it appears they have some vulnerabilities against teams with multiple perimeter scoring threats. A Brooklyn team with all of their best available talent certainly fits that description.
In a resounding victory Tuesday against the Jazz, the Nets pitched Irving, Bruce Brown, Taurean Prince, Jeff Green and Jarrett Allen. The Nets bench is averaging 42.3 points per game, sixth in the league, and Nash has plenty of ways to reshuffle his roster. Perhaps the former Sixer Landry Shamet will start and / or play more than usual to give the Nets some ball and shooting handling. Nash said Allen would start over and have an “incredibly difficult game” against Joel Embiid.
Brooklyn is also without Spencer Diwniddie (partially torn ACL), Nicolas Claxton (right knee tendinopathy), Reggie Perry (left groin pain), and Tyler Johnson (health and safety protocols). In addition to Curry, Furkan Korkmaz and Mike Scott are sidelined by a left adductor strain and left knee contusion, respectively, while Terrance Ferguson is out for personal reasons for the Sixers.
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