Watch Live: Brooklyn Nets at San Antonio Spurs, 8:00 PM EST on YES Network

There are no “gimmes” in the NBA, but on Tuesday night the Brooklyn Nets will head to San Antonio to take on the Spurs.

Brooklyn will once again be without Kevin Durant, but they should have all the talent they’ll need to beat a young team like the Spurs.

San Antonio is on a 5-game losing streak; only to be outdone by the Houston Rockets and their 11-game losing streak.

Again, you don’t want to overlook anyone but the Nets have no excuses in this one. Just go out there and win.

WHO: Brooklyn Nets (27-15) at San Antonio Spurs (13-31)

WHEN: 8:00 pm est

WHERE: YES Network (tv and app), WFAN-FM (radio)

Game preview.

As the Spurs head to the trade deadline, the expectation was that Poeltl would be a player heading out the door. However, that may not be the case after all. The latest reporting says that they might be keeping Poeltl past the deadline and have him as a key part of their future. And there’s plenty of good reasons why they’d want him to stick around. Poeltl offers quality rim protection, great rebounding, and is a surprisingly great offensive initiator in the high post. Guys like that are hard to come by, so best believe teams will try and see if they can get him on their squads for the stretch run.

Poetl remains close to Patty Mills who of course spent most of his career in San Antonio. Mills is among several Nets employees with ties to San Antonio, including Sean Marks, Jacque Vaughn, assistant GM Andy Birdsong, assistant coach Brian Keefe and director of coaching analytics Logan MacPhail. Mills, Marks, Vaughn, Keefe and MacPhail all won rings with the Spurs.

Nic Claxton was outstanding once again on Sunday evening. The big fella had 17 points, 13 rebounds, and four blocks in 33 minutes against the Thunder. There were plenty of occasions where the Thunder had a shot attempt at the rim, but decided against it when they saw Clax was lurking. It’s a tremendous sign that he is able to intimidate other teams and make them think twice about trying to test him. You got a big fella like him that runs the floor really well, contests everything, can handle guard switches, and can dunk on anybody? Send him to the All Star Game!

For more on the Spurs, check out Pounding the Rock.