Updated Injury Report: Key Player Out for Nets vs. Cavs
After a week of coming very close to their first fully clean injury report since 2019, the Brooklyn Nets got hit with two key losses for Monday night's game against the Cleveland Cavaliers (22-12).
Brooklyn has ruled veteran wing Joe Harris (left knee soreness) vs. Cavaliers at Rocket Morgage Fieldhouse. The game will mark Harris' fifth missed game of the season.
Harris was a late lineup scratch in Friday's impressive victory over the Milwaukee Bucks at Barclays Center. The longest-tenured Net reported the knee soreness shortly after he arrived at the arena. The Nets head coach, Jacque Vaughn didn't think twice about ruling the starting wing out. It is unclear how long Harris will be out with the knee soreness.
“I’m going to have to go back and look at substitutions again," said Vaughn shortly after Harris was ruled out Friday evening. "Like tonight Joe was going to be the first sub off the bench so it does change things. We’ll have to look at how we can get an advantage tonight strategically, when we want to play small, if we want to play small, if we’re going to add another guy to the mix. We’re still going to talk that through after this."
The Nets took another hit to their lineup hours before their Monday night matchup in Cleveland. The team has officially ruled Seth Curry (non-COVID illness) out. There is no further update at the time of this writing on Brooklyn's shooting guard.
Brooklyn will also be without David Duke Jr., Day'Ron Sharpe, Kessler Edwards, and Alondes Williams. The young Nets will continue to get reps with the team's NBA G League affiliate, the Long Island Nets.
Meanwhile, for Cleveland, the team has listed Isaiah Mobley (G League - Two-Way), Ricky Rubio (left knee, ACL surgery), Dean Wade (left shoulder sprain), and Dylan Windler (right ankle sprain) out vs. Brooklyn.
The Nets are riding a season-best eight-game winning streak into Monday's game. In that span, Brooklyn has forged four-straight wins on the road. In a battle of two top 4 seeds in the East, these are the matchups superstar forward Kevin Durant looks forward to the most.
"We all look for matchups in the regular season that means something," Durant told reporters in Cleveland. "We all love the playoffs; so as close as we can get to that type of intensity, you want that in a regular season."