Steve Nash had some jokes in media availability ahead of the Nets’ victory over Damian Lillard and the Trail Blazers last night.
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Steve Nash entered the season as a rookie head coach in one of the most high-pressure situations in the NBA. He’s mostly dealt with it cool as a cucumber. Much of this success has to do with the blockbuster trade that landed them James Harden.
Acquiring Harden has made life really easy for Nash in the head coaching role. With Mike D’Antoni by his side, all Nash has had to do is designate the Beard as his default playmaker.
As a result, James is now practically a lock for the second assists title of his career. Harden bagged 3 scoring titles prior to this season, which was preceded by his first assists title in his first year as a point guard. These figures help to put in perspective just how dominant the Beard has been.
Steve Nash says he’d play Jesus tonight, would in fact hand him a starting berth
The Nets have now won 16 of their last 18 games. They won without Kyrie Irving against a playoff team in the West yet again. Harden had 27 points (despite shooting just 29% from the field) and a Nets career-high 17 assists on the night.
The Blazers are easing CJ McCollum back, and they cooled off from range in the second half last night. It was supposed to be a birthday game for Kyrie Irving, but he is out of action for family reasons.
Nash was not to know this ahead of the game last night. A reporter began asking a question about how the Nets would have dealt with the absence of James Harden. However, he messed up and said Kevin Durant, instead.
Trying to atone for his slip-up, he profusely apologized: ‘Jesus…..If James Harden was unavailable’.
Nash let him finish the question out before chipping in with ‘I would play Jesus tonight, I would start him if we had him’. However, because this interview was held over the Internet, we didn’t hear the chuckles we would’ve in person.
