![]() I loved that it was against the Celtics, of course, but more-so I loved that they turned a supposedly serious contest into a laugher on an opponent’s home floor. The next moment of joy was Game 5 of that series, a much less comfortable situation but a much more euphoric ending:ġ04 points! They combined for 104 points, and the only reason it wasn’t more is because James Harden was busy handing out 18 assists. Three points with over 60 seconds to go and I’m celebrating, had I never watched basketball before? (I did not view either the 76ers or Hawks as serious threats in 2021, more-so road bumps.) I stop for a moment on my way back and allow myself, for the first time, to bask in a wave of “the Nets are going to the Finals” giddiness. I calmly set my laptop down and take off sprinting through the grass, jumping up and down, squealing. ![]() By the fourth quarter, most people had cleared out, and I had pulled my buddy to the side to sweat out the end of regulation with me.ĭurant hits that pull-up three. I spent that gathering glued to my laptop, adding side comments to conversation during free-throws or commercials that broke up the action of Bucks-Nets, Game 3. I was outdoors, at some picnic situation my best friend had convinced me to come to. If nothing else, his Phoenix Suns will be an entertaining watch.ĭo you remember where you were when Durant hit this shot? It’s 2023, you can and should watch your favorite player perform magic whenever you so choose. ![]() Watching Kevin Durant is like watching a conveyor belt turn scrap metal into a hanger.Īnd yet, losing KD isn’t quite why this sucks, or at least the whole reason. There’s a point at which you can spot something the defense shouldn’t have done, no matter how unfair of an ask it is. At least with Steph Curry, there's often a moment during a Golden State possession where the opponent botches an assignment, getting confused on one of the umpteen screens he runs around. They go in every time, and it’s inevitable. Durant is touching SIXTY PERCENT on mid-range jumpers, and he’s creating all of them against defenders of every shape and size. It’s a different experience than watching Steph Curry, the undisputed greatest shooter ever, make 45% of his usually-difficult three-point attempts. It was astounding when he missed a semi-open shot. You were there, you watched just like I did, and you didn’t need stats from Cleaning the Glass or even re-watches of Brooklyn games to understand KD’s impact, to understand that he was the greatest Net anybody ever saw touch a basketball. After wholly dismissing the Clean Sweep era, I don’t have it in me to wax too poetic about Kevin Durant. They won a fun game, and I’m looking forward to watching the film on Friday. In this case, the forced exposure was healthy. This terminal condition that we share stipulated I check the score on my phone, that I scroll through highlights on social media, that I was hardly less separated from the Nets than if I had sat down and watched the TNT broadcast. I’m just glad the dagger went in and out of our hearts at the snap of a finger.īut I shouldn’t have been so hopeful on Thursday. Subconsciously, we all knew what was coming. That era officially ended a day later, when the Nets shipped Kevin Durant to Phoenix. I had written a farewell to Kyrie Irving, releasing all that built up during his nearly four years in Brooklyn, so much so that it works as a farewell to that entire era of Nets basketball. The ever-capable Matt Brooks was there to cover the game, so I opted to head to a friend’s house, hopefully taking the Nets off my mind for a few hours. (Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson are likelier to debut on Saturday.) In any case, I skipped out on watching this almost-whole version of the Brooklyn Nets notch their first win in their first game, a 116-105 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Thursday night. ![]() The only new look for this franchise would be a consistent one. It feels disingenuous to use the phrase “new-look Nets” yet again, to describe, like, the tenth look for Brooklyn over the past three-or-so years.
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