Kevin Durant Expected to Return from Knee Injury for Nets vs. Heat

The Brooklyn Nets are an ugly 3-15 in their last 18 games, but significant help is apparently on the way.

Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium reported Kevin Durant is expected to play Thursday's home game against the Miami Heat. Durant has been sidelined by a knee injury and last played in a game during Brooklyn's victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Jan. 15.

Given the expectations surrounding the Nets and the overall talent on their roster, this season is championship-or-bust.

Yet roster instability has been the major storyline to this point for the 32-31 team that is in eighth place in the Eastern Conference standings and looking at a potential spot in the play-in tournament for the Nos. 7-10 seeds.

Durant's injury is part of it, but Kyrie Irving remains ineligible to play in home games because he is unvaccinated against COVID-19. James Harden also dealt with hamstring concerns before he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in a deal that brought Ben Simmons to Brooklyn, and the latter is yet to play in a single game this season.

The return of Durant will provide a major boost for the team looking to climb up the standings and perhaps avoid that play-in tournament.

After all, he is one of the best players in the league and averaged 29.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game while shooting 52.0 percent from the field and 37.2 percent from three-point range prior to the setback.

Had the 12-time All-Star played an entire season with those numbers, he would surely be in the MVP discussion.

The Nets are 4.5 games behind the sixth-seeded Boston Celtics, so making up that deficit to avoid the play-in tournament will not be an easy task even with a healthy Durant leading the way. They have a mere 19 games remaining, and Irving still can't play at home while Simmons' immediate availability remains up in the air.

It might be up to Durant to put the team on his back if it is going to challenge for a title.