Kyrie Irving shot just 12-of-32 from the field in the Nets’ 122-115 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday. Irving has not shot the ball well in his last five games. Coincidentally, his shooting slump comes after he became eligible to be a full-time player again.
The numbers speak for themselves: Irving shot just 9-of-22 in the Nets’ one-point overtime loss to the Milwaukee Bucks; 7-of-18 in a too-close-for-comfort seven-point win over the Detroit Pistons; 6-of-22 in his first home game of the season — a loss to the Charlotte Hornets — and 4-of-11 in the Nets’ road clobbering of the Miami Heat.
That’s 38 makes on 105 field goal attempts and 17-of-45 on threes in his last five games. For those who aren’t the best at mental math, that’s 36% from the field and 38% from downtown.
For reference, Irving shot better than 50% from the field, 40% from three and 90% from the foul line last season. Prior to Mayor Adams creating the exemption, Irving averaged 28.5 points on 49.4% shooting from the field and 43.8% shooting from downtown.
Which begs the question: Is Irving suffering from a drastic change in his work schedule? The All-Star guard didn’t make his season debut until Jan. 5 — 36 games into the regular season — and only played in five sets of consecutive games (including three-, four- and five-game road trips) before his eligibility at Barclays Center changed.
That change in eligibility has put more minutes on Irving’s legs, more days in a week, more weeks in a month and appears to be a reason why his shooting has slumped.
“Yeah it could be,” Irving agreed after missing 20 field goals in the loss to the Hawks. “I won’t rule it out, but I’m not here to make any excuses for why it’s not going well for me on the offensive end.”
Nets head coach Steve Nash was quick to defend Irving after he shot 7-of-18 against the Pistons, saying Irving was two made shots away from being over 50%, but walked those comments back after his performance against the Hawks.
“I think Kyrie’s adapting to playing every night, every other night now,” Nash said on Saturday. “Maybe it’s not a classic from him, but he’s still 7-of-14 from three, 31 points, six assists so you can’t complain too much. The guy had to carry a big load with all the guards out of the lineup tonight. He’ll be fine.”
Whatever the reason for Irving’s slump — he is also a Muslim observing Ramadan, which means he cannot eat or drink while the sun is up and was spotted eating fruit on the sideline shortly after 8 p.m. when the sun set in Atlanta — the Nets need him to snap out of it. With four regular-season games left on the schedule, the Nets find themselves as the Eastern Conference’s 10th seed. If they don’t finish eighth or better after those four games, they will face elimination in the first game of the play-in tournament.
They are in this position in part due to Irving’s inability to make the shots he’s made over the course of his career. The Nets lost to the Hawks despite 55 points from superstar forward Kevin Durant. If Irving doesn’t step up, they could be headed home sooner than later.
“What a time to go into a shooting dip as well,” he said. “I just wanna climb back out of that so we’re not putting so much pressure on No. 7 [Durant], and it’s just better for our offense. So instead of starting off the game going 1-for-6, hopefully these next few games I’ll be able to get going in the first quarter, in the first half, and we can just settle down a little bit.”
()