Brooklyn is in big trouble if both James Harden and Kyrie Irving are out

*NOTE: James Harden has been upgraded to Questionable for Game 5 Tuesday night and is expected to play barring any setbacks in pre-game warmups (Woj)

Losing one star player is bad enough and now, with Kyrie Irving injuring his ankle, the Nets are likely going to be without two of their superstars for at least Game 5. Sources have told NBA Analysis Network that both Harden and Irving are “unlikely” to play in Game 5 against the Bucks on Tuesday night. 

With both Harden (hamstring) and Irving (ankle) likely out for the Nets next game against the Bucks, this leaves Brooklyn with just Kevin Durant, which is not entirely bad, but not ideal seeing as the Nets supporting cast has not been great in this series. Milwaukee has played pretty good defense on the Nets in this series, resulting in many of the Nets’ role players to struggle as of late. 

In the second-half of Game 4, the Nets scored a total of 48 points without both Harden and Irving on the floor. Kevin Durant scored 16 of these points on his own, but nobody else really stepped up as that “second” option next to KD. Bruce Brown scored 7 points, Jeff Green scored 6 points, Joe Harris scored 3 points, with the rest of the Nets’ points coming from end-of-the-bench guys. 

In this series against the Bucks, Irving and Durant have combined to score roughly 47.5% of the Nets’ total points in this series and Joe Harris, Blake Griffin and Bruce Brown have combined to score roughly 29.4% of the Nets total points. However, these three guys have only combined to score 26.3% of the Nets total points in Games 3 and 4 combined. 

READ MORE: NBA Playoffs: Ranking top potential challengers to Brooklyn Nets in NBA playoffs

Given that Brooklyn’s role players have been struggling the last couple of games, not having both Irving and Harden on the court is bad news for the Nets because Durant cannot win this series on his own. He could average 40-50 points the rest of the way without both Irving and Harden, but if nobody else is stepping up to make shots, then the Nets will not be able to take down the Bucks. 

With a maximum of three games remaining in this series and both Kyrie Irving and James Harden dealing with non-minimal injuries, things are not looking good for the Brooklyn Nets.