"We can't give a team 20 more shots than us" - Kevin Durant on why Brooklyn Nets lost 104-127 to Milwaukee Bucks on NBA Opening Night

Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets watched Giannis Antetokounmpo and the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks raise their championship banner and get their championship rings. They then spent a large part of the evening seeing the Bucks tee off of them with shot after shot in a lopsided 127-104 loss.

In a postgame interview, Kevin Durant took a measure of things, particularly the disparity in the shots taken between the Brooklyn Nets and the Milwaukee Bucks.

Here’s what Durant had to say after their opening night loss:

“We can’t give a team 20 more shots than us. Imagine coming to a game and say ‘here, take the ball 20 times on offense before we get an offensive position.”

Per NBA stats, the reigning champion Milwaukee Bucks took 105 shots and made 48 of them. The Brooklyn Nets attempted only 84 shots and buried 37 of them. The percentages are not too far off, but the number of attempts and makes are simply too far apart.

Kevin Durant is not worried, though.

He continued:

“This is one game out of 82 of them. We’ll look at it that way. Every team will look at it that way. The Bucks won today, but they still trying to fine-tune what they do, too. I think every team in the league is going to look at their first few games, first few weeks and see where their team is going and then make adjustments.”

The NBA season just opened and there are going to be nights like this for every team in the league, even for a team as offensively potent as the Brooklyn Nets with Kevin Durant leading the charge. One game is not going to make a season so they will be looking to bounce back after this loss.

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Was the season opener between the Kevin Durant-led Brooklyn Nets and the Giannis Antetokounmpo-headed Milwaukee Bucks a preview of the Eastern Conference Finals?

The season opener is only the first of four meetings in the regular season between the Milwaukee Bucks and Brooklyn Nets.

It’s way too early in the season to make such a prediction. There are so many things that could go wrong in a single game, especially health. Plus, it would be disrespectful to count out teams who have not even played a minute into the season. The Miami Heat, Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks and the rest of the playoff contenders will have a say in this as the year progresses.

That being said, if the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks avoid injuries to key players such as Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo, it’s hard to see a scenario where these two teams will not meet again for a titanic rematch. The rematch could very well happen in the Eastern Conference Finals.

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