Nets favored to win 2021-22 NBA title

Brooklyn watches as Bucks complete championship run

July 21, 2021 John Torenli, Sports Editor

Giannis Antetokounmpo gets a big hug from Jrue Holiday after leading the Milwaukee Bucks to their first NBA title since 1971 Tuesday night.

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Moments after the Milwaukee Bucks won their first NBA championship since 1971 Tuesday night, the Brooklyn Nets were back on the clock for delivering our borough’s first major pro sports crown since 1955.

According to an ESPN report, the Nets have been installed as the favorite to grab their first-ever NBA title in 2021-22, coming in at +225 after falling well short of this year’s goal with a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the eventual champions in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

“In a normal year, if (Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving) stay somewhat healthy, they definitely figure to be the best team,” William Hill U.S. director of trading Nick Bogdanovich told the network.

The Nets’ superstar triumvirate couldn’t come close to doing so in 2020-21.

Kevin Durant’s playoff heroics weren’t enough to get the Nets past the eventual NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks this past season.

Durant tested positive for COVID-19 twice and missed more than a month of the season with a hamstring injury before carrying most of the load in the playoffs.

Harden also felt a twinge in his hamstring that cost him 18 regular-season games and forced him to hobble around on one leg during Brooklyn’s postseason run.

Irving rolled an ankle in Game 4 in Milwaukee and never saw the hardwood again.

Add the loss of Spencer Dinwiddie in December due to a season-ending knee injury and LaMarcus Aldridge’s retirement after he learned of a heart issue, and the Nets were shorthanded and unable to overcome NBA Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.

“I think it’s just a credit to the players,” Milwaukee head coach Mike Budenholzer said after watching Antetokounmpo score 50 points and rip down 14 rebounds in Tuesday’s clinching Game 6 victory.

“We’ve been pushing,” he added. “We’ve been trying to get better. The players embrace everything. They’re amazingly coachable. They take it, soak it in and make the best of it.”

Brooklyn didn’t use its injuries as an excuse after outspending every other NBA team and promising a title from the moment Durant and Irving arrived here in the summer of 2019.

It hasn’t happened yet and it might not while the Big Three inhabits Downtown’s Barclays Center.

However, Las Vegas oddsmakers firmly believe that, at the very least, the Nets will be widely regarded as the top team in the East when next season kicks off and are also expected to reach the Finals for the first time since 2003.

Judging by previous history, the preseason betting favorite has won four of the previous six NBA championships, a run that does not include the title the Bucks ripped out of the Nets’ grasp when Durant’s bid for a second game-tying shot missed everything and bounded out of play in Game 7.

“We got good looks there in overtime. We just didn’t knock them down,” Durant said of the hard-to-swallow 115-111 defeat.

“Respect to the Milwaukee Bucks in how they prepare, how they challenged us all series and made adjustments all series. We’ve got nothing but respect for that ballclub.”

Apparently, the oddsmakers don’t.

The Bucks are ranked third in the preseason betting lines after the Los Angeles Lakers and the Nets.

But as this season proved beyond a reasonable doubt, these games aren’t played on paper, nor are they beholden to the opinions of betting experts, who are more interested in getting money wagered on both sides rather than actually predicting who might win it all in 2021-22.

Nets head coach Steve Nash admitted that his team was hurt deeply by last month’s Game 7 loss to Milwaukee at Downtown’s Barclays Center.

As for the Nets, they can use this season’s heartbreak as motivation for next year, but they also can’t forget how close they came to getting past the eventual champs at Barclays Center on June 19.

“They know they could have won the series,” Nets head coach Steve Nash admitted.

“They also do realize deep down that they gave it everything they had. It’s not total…It hurts. It hurts bad. It hurts all of us. I hurt so much for these guys. But they also realize they gave it everything they had.”

They’ll have to give a bit more and stay a little healthier if they hope to shut down Flatbush Avenue next summer for a championship parade.