LONDON – Brooklyn Nets, meet the London Zombies.
“You know what? I haven’t been asleep,” Joe Johnson said after Tuesday’s practice while shaking his head. “Honestly. We got in yesterday, and I slept for five or six hours, and I’ve been up ever since.
“I didn’t go to sleep last night. I’m on fumes right now. I’m gonna try to get caught up on my sleep tonight … but, for whatever reason, I just couldn’t sleep.”
Beginning Friday night, the Nets made three flights to three different countries within a 48-hour span, making the transition to their several-day stay in London all the more difficult.
After beating Miami in double overtime Friday night in Brooklyn, the Nets headed to the airport and took off for Toronto, getting into their hotel north of the border around 4 a.m. Then, after fading down the stretch and having their five-game winning streak snapped by the Raptors Saturday night, they headed to the airport to return to New York for a full night’s sleep ahead of their impending trip to London.
But instead of leaving, the Nets sat at the airport in Toronto for several hours Saturday evening because of an issue with their plane, meaning they didn’t get back to New York until around 5 a.m. Sunday morning. After a brief nap, it was time for everyone to pack and head back to the airport once again to catch the Sunday night flight to London, where they arrived on Monday morning. The Nets play the Hawks on Thursday at O2 Arena.
“It’s been a little chaotic,” Johnson said. “But it’s part of it, man. We can’t control some of the things that happen.
“We’ve just got to roll with it and we’re here in London, now. That’s the main thing. Our main focus now is to just get better each and every day and prepare for the Hawks.”
Because of the crazy travel schedule leading up to the flight to London, most of the players spent Monday trying to sleep and adjust to their new surroundings, with varying degrees of success. But even the ones who, unlike Johnson, managed to get some sleep looked exhausted.
“[Monday] was pretty much a rest day for me,” Paul Pierce said. “I slept pretty much all day, woke up and went back to sleep. Today will be a day to probably get out of the room and go for a walk.
“I’ve been to London a couple of times, once thanks to the NBA and then I came on vacation a couple of times, but you cherish every time you get to be places you don’t normally go.”
Beyond the amount of time and miles the team has traveled, there’s also the physical challenge of cramming extremely tall people into airplanes and buses, where they spent plenty of extra time sitting through the additional legs of the journey.
“It is tough to travel, especially when you travel more than four hours,” Andrei Kirilenko said. “We’re spending the majority of our time sitting. You’re sitting on a plane, you’re sitting on a bus, your back starts to hurt, especially with being tall.
“Like, look at KG. He’s 7-feet tall and, what, 40 years old? Like, he has to travel like that. Then he has to get on the floor … it’s tough to prepare yourself after that. But I think it’s a great time to have four or five days in between so we have a chance to recover.”