This is what it appears like when Brooklyn’s Big Three is firing on all cylinders.
Kevin Durant taking pictures over defender after defender. Kyrie Irving contorting his physique with the ball in his fingers, both in mid-air or in mid-crossover. Ben Simmons crashing the boards and pushing the tempo, discovering shooters in transition.
And the Nets eeking out a close-call victory over a top quality opponent.
After getting completely embarrassed of their season-opening blowout loss to the New Orleans Pelicans — a staff Irving decreed a championship contender “for the next few years” — the Nets strung collectively a profitable efficiency of their 109-105 victory over the scrappy Toronto Raptors on Friday.
It was a top quality victory given the blitzing protection of a Raptors staff that made life troublesome for all three Nets stars at totally different factors of the evening.
“They’re a very unique team. The type of athletes they target for their program, the length, their versatility. The way they can put pressure and it looks like they’ve made a real commitment to pressuring full-court and pressuring catches in the halfcourt and lots of areas that they’ve always done,” head coach Steve Nash stated earlier than the sport.
“They’re very aggressive and they’re also just an excellent team at reading and reacting, scrambling off the ball. They can speed people up, they can take them out of their action, they switch a lot which also takes you out of actions so they’re a unique opponent defensively and offensively as well. They just try to spread you out and penetrate and kick and play from there. Great challenge for our guys.”
Durant, for instance, missed all 5 of his first pictures and didn’t make his first area purpose till halfway by the second quarter. But when it rains, it pours. After going 0-of-5, Durant made eight of his subsequent 13 pictures and completed with 27 factors to go together with six assists and 4 rebounds.
Irving completed with 30 factors in a top quality efficiency towards a stingy Raptor protection that threw our bodies at him left and proper. He got here alive within the fourth quarter, stringing collectively three straight performs to maintain the Raptors at bay: a side-step three evading Fred VanVleet; a turnaround fading and-one jumper over OG Anunoby; after which a mindblowing punch-pass to Simmons for an help on the rim.
And after a back-and-forth sport of runs with leads swinging in every path, the latest Net hit the largest shot.
Royce O’Neale hit a 3 with 14 seconds to go within the fourth quarter to provide the Nets a 108-104 lead the Raptors couldn’t overcome. O’Neale was 1-of-6 from the sector earlier than hitting that shot. Nash saved O’Neale within the beginning lineup regardless that sharpshooter Joe Harris returned from his bout with ankle soreness on Friday. Harris performed 18 minutes and hit one shot in his return.
Raptors All-Star Pascal Siakam completed with a game-high 37 factors in a triple-double efficiency that additionally included 11 assists and 13 rebounds.
The Nets recorded their first win of the season, but it surely will get harder from right here. They will hit the highway to face the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday, then hike as much as Milwaukee for a sport towards Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks proper after.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com