James Harden and Bruce Brown have entered the league’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols, the Nets announced Tuesday evening before their game against the Toronto Raptors, bringing the team’s total to seven players out due to those protocols.
Starting center LaMarcus Aldridge, starting swingman DeAndre’ Bembry, power forward James Johnson and point guard Jevon Carter had already been added to the injury report earlier Tuesday and ruled out for the Raptors game. They joined veteran forward Paul Millsap, who was ruled out Monday under the protocols.
The Nets also added star forward Kevin Durant to the injury report Tuesday morning as questionable to play against Toronto because of right ankle soreness.
The Nets will face the Raptors without seven players as of now. Forward Joe Harris (ankle surgery) and point guard Kyrie Irving (not with team) were already out as well. Durant is coming off scoring an NBA season-high 51 points at Detroit on Sunday. Harden did not play in that win over Detroit so he could rest.
Seven Nets players entering health and safety protocols comes 10 days after Brooklyn faced the Chicago Bulls on Dec. 4. The Bulls were just starting a stretch in which their roster has been decimated by a COVID-19 outbreak.
Chicago had two games against Detroit and Toronto postponed — the first games this season to be postponed. Chicago has had Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan, Troy Brown Jr., Coby White, Javonte Green, Matt Thomas, Derrick Jones Jr., Ayo Dosunmu, Stanley Johnson and Alize Johnson all enter the protocols.
The New York Knicks, meanwhile, had their third player in the past four days enter the protocols when they announced that rookie guard Quentin Grimes had gone into them Tuesday.
Grimes set the franchise’s rookie record with seven 3-pointers, scoring a career-high 27 points, in Sunday’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks — his first NBA start. Obi Toppin and RJ Barrett went into the protocols over the weekend.
ESPN’s Tim Bontemps contributed to this report.
