PJ Tucker was on the other side of the 2021 playoff matchup, and he saw firsthand what the Nets’ star trio was capable of. Years later, his take on Brooklyn’s chemistry adds another layer to one of the NBA’s biggest what-ifs.
PJ Tucker has a pretty simple response to the idea that the Brooklyn Nets’ star-studded Big Three never really meshed.
They did.
Tucker, who was with the Milwaukee Bucks during their 2021 playoff series against Brooklyn, recently shared his perspective on the Nets while appearing on Uninterrupted Weekly with Wale.
The conversation came after Kevin Durant identified the Nets as the best roster he had ever been part of “on paper,” sparking a discussion about how well Durant, Kyrie Irving, and James Harden actually fit together.
For Tucker, who saw the trio up close during that 2021 playoff run, there wasn't much to debate.
“They meshed, trust me,” Tucker said.
Tucker wasn't just watching that Nets team from the outside. He was on the other side of the court when Brooklyn had its Big Three together, trying to help the Bucks figure out how to slow them down.
He brought up the first game of the Eastern Conference semifinal series as an example.
“They dogged us Game 1,” Tucker said. “We was in the locker room after Game 1 like, all right, lock in. We got to figure [it] out.”
Brooklyn won the first two games of the series before Milwaukee came back to win in seven. Looking back, the series became one of the biggest “what ifs” in recent NBA history, largely because of what happened to Brooklyn's stars.
Harden was dealing with a hamstring injury, while Irving suffered an ankle injury in Game 4 and missed the rest of the series. That left Durant to carry much of the load for the Nets.
It's also a big reason why the chemistry of that group has been debated for years.
Durant, Irving, and Harden were three of the most talented offensive players in the league at the time, but they never got a full postseason run together. They played only a limited number of games alongside one another during the regular season, and injuries kept getting in the way.
Because of that, it's easy to look back and wonder whether the three stars ever really figured out how to play together.
Tucker doesn't see it that way.
He was there.
And from what he saw, they worked.
During the conversation, Tucker also talked about just how ridiculous the talent was on that Brooklyn roster.
“Just with him, James, and Kyrie. That’s like, it is crazy,” Tucker said.
Tucker wasn't necessarily saying the Nets would have been better than Durant's Golden State teams, either. He pointed to the Warriors' overall talent and chemistry, noting that Golden State had already won 73 games before Durant even joined the team.
That's an important distinction.
The Nets never got enough time together to prove what their Big Three could accomplish over the course of an entire season or postseason. But according to someone who actually had to defend them, the chemistry wasn't the problem.
They meshed.
And that makes Tucker's comments worth remembering when the 2021 Nets come up. Durant recently called that Brooklyn roster the best one he played on “on paper,” while Tucker is giving the perspective of someone who saw that talent up close during the playoffs.
The question of what might have happened if Durant, Irving, and Harden had stayed healthy together will probably never have an answer.
But Tucker seems pretty confident about one part of it.
The three of them worked together.
