It can’t be a rivalry if the outcomes are this lopsided.
Even if the Knicks and Nets needed to feed into the cross-bridge rivalry narrative — which they don’t — the numbers lean too drastically in Brooklyn’s favor.
Sunday’s 122-115 victory marked the Nets’ ninth straight victory over their close by opponent. The Knicks haven’t crushed the Nets within the Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving period. That didn’t change with Durant watching Saturday’s showdown from the sidelines nursing an MCL sprain in his proper knee. Ben Simmons additionally missed Saturday’s recreation with soreness in his left knee.
“I think what makes it a competitive atmosphere is you have two New York teams,” Vaughn stated forward of tip-off towards the Knicks on Saturday. “We’re at all times jockeying for brand new followers, outdated followers, the eye, massive metropolis — however I believe it must develop some extra by having some extra significant video games earlier than it will get to (a rivalry).
The NBA deemed the week of Jan. 21-28 as a league-wide rivalry week. The Nets performed the Philadelphia 76ers in a recreation with playoff implications given the proximity of the Nets and Sixers within the Eastern Conference standings.
The breadcrumbs, after all, recommend the rivalry is deeper than simply their report or the 2 cities’ proximity to one another: The Sixers traded Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond and two first-round picks to the Nets for James Harden final season. Both Harden and Simmons needed out of their respective cities, with Simmons enduring a very poisonous departure from Philadelphia.
Yet Durant maintained there’s no rivalry between Philly and Brooklyn, that rivalries are scarce within the NBA as a result of groups usually don’t play sufficient significant video games to create authentic rigidity.
Vaughn provided the same view when discussing the connection with the Knicks. He leaned on his expertise as level guard for the Kansas Jayhawks to provide some perspective.
“Kansas-Missouri used to be a rivalry. North Carolina and Duke. Those are rivalries where you’ve played so many games and you’ve established a rapport that probably isn’t likable amongst the two teams for a long time, maybe even generations,” Vaughn stated. “That would be my immediate reflection of what a rivalry is. But free agency and movement, you can try to navigate and create a rivalry, but until you have a history of playing each other, I don’t think it really exists.”
Vaughn stated Celtics-Lakers stays one of many NBA’s solely authentic rivalries.
“I can remember that as a kid. That’s a rivalry. That’s generational,” he stated. “I grew up: Sundays, going to church, couldn’t wait until I got back home to see the Lakers play Boston. That’s a rivalry that I still remember to this day that still exists. It’s history.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com