Kyrie Irving was courtside but ineligible. Ben Simmons was hurt. But Kevin Durant was dominant. That’s all the Nets needed.
Durant carried Brooklyn to a 110-107 win over the rival Knicks on Sunday amid chants of “MVP! MVP!” at Barclays Center.
Durant poured in 53 points, the second-most in what will surely be a Hall of Fame career. He shot 19 of 37 from the floor, handed out nine assists and grabbed six rebounds. Durant even played harassing defense when needed on Julius Randle and RJ Barrett, picking up for the Nets missing Irving, Simmons, LaMarcus Aldridge, Joe Harris and Seth Curry, who was a late scratch.
“I didn’t know Seth was out [until late],” Durant said during a postgame TV interview. “I felt like we were missing a lot of scoring punch so I had to pick up.”
Durant’s 16-foot pull-up jumper gave Brooklyn a 101-94 lead with 4:54 left. But moments later he got de-cleated by Randle (team-high 26 points), knocked on his butt and left stunned looking for a call while Randle went the other way with the ball. Goran Dragic got whistled for a clear path foul on Randle while Durant protested to the referee.
That play seemed to inspire the Knicks and deflate Brooklyn. The Nets allowed nine unanswered points, capped by a driving layup from RJ Barrett (24 points) for a 103-101 Knicks edge with 2:52 left.
But center Andre Drummond dunked to knot the game with 2:12 remaining. And after the Knicks predictably blitzed Durant, he gave up the ball, got it back and hit a huge 3-pointer with 56.3 seconds left.
After a Randle driving dunk and a Durant miss, the Knicks, down a point, had one last chance. But as Evan Fournier attempted a pass inside, Bruce Brown elevated and tipped it for a steal. Nic Claxton came up with the loose ball and after a Nets timeout, Alec Burks had to intentionally foul Durant on an inbound.
Durant calmly sank both at the line with 6.6 seconds left. And after Barrett sank the first free throw and seemingly tried to miss the second but hit nothing but net, Brooklyn still led by a point with 2.6 seconds left in regulation.
There would be no overtime.
“I hope that our guys are locked in and feel a sense of desperation and a sense of opportunity,” Steve Nash said. “Finally we have most of our guys back in the lineup so I think to have that kind of opportunity to play and to play together and to have a more fully formed team should be exciting for our guys. Although it was an emotional win on Thursday night [in Philadelphia] hopefully they’ve had some time to move past it and prepare for today’s game.”
The Nets (35-33) are 2 ½ games behind seventh place Toronto, and two clear of the Hornets and Hawks.
The Knicks (28-40) fell to five games behind the latter pair outside the play-in.
“When you have a guy like Durant, and then you add to that, a Curry and Patty Mills, a Dragic,” Tom Thibodeau said. “And then if you overlook Bruce Brown you’re making a huge mistake, and Drummond’s a monster on the boards. So it’s a very talented team. And then when you do add Kyrie to the mix, and eventually you’ll add Simmons to the mix¸ when you talk about high-end talent, they got it.
