At 115-108, the Nets settled the playoffs and locked in the Seventh Seed in the East to advance to the playoffs.
The second quarter of the nets and cavaliers game is nearing the end, Irving is advancing with the ball on the right side, LeVert and Mobley closed the line near the center line, but failed to clamp, Irving changed direction to combine the back of the ball to tear open the bag clip, seeing that the half-time end whistle will sound, after the emergency stop to lean back, the body has been somewhat out of balance after the throw, the ball should be sounded into the net, the stadium instantly boiled.
The mayor of New York looked at the vaccine exemption order he had given and smiled slightly, Irving can play at home, it is good.
For the playoffs, there is a lot of debate in the outside world, focusing on the fact that they are obviously seventh and eighth, why do you have to play such a game to enter the playoffs, is this fair and reasonable? There are more than two play-offs, less than one, the contingency is very large, the winner and loser attribution inevitably have a certain randomness, in case the higher ranking team overturns the ship?
The Nets' performance this time gave a good answer, hard power can overwhelm randomness, how can a ship with superstars as oars overturn?
Against his old club, Irving played a fairy ball, 20 minutes and 20 points in the first half, 9 shots and 9 shots, he did not lose the first goal of the game until 1 minute and 51 seconds after the start of the fourth quarter, and the first 12 shots of the game were all shots, and the whole game scored 34 points.
The Nets' attack mode is to find a single opportunity to bring the game into one-on-one, so the focus of playing the Nets is to prevent singles, which is a well-known thing, the Cavaliers are of course very clear, but should be able to prevent and be able to defend are two different things, Irving has the ability to chisel hard in the playoff intensity of the confrontation, you also try to prevent, is not able to prevent, this is a very murderous frustration.
Objectively speaking, it is not very surprising that Irving has a high score with high efficiency, he is the type of attack that can be killed without relying on a large number of free throws. What caused more trauma to the Cavaliers was that Irving also had 12 assists, which meant that you didn't block his personal attack, and you didn't cut off his connection with his teammates, and the defense was at least one head, but the Cavaliers didn't get it right on both ends.
For example, this ball, the Cavaliers closed the door on the line to block Irving, but the basket leaked cleanly, directly giving Irving and Drummond the operation space of the connection, Jarrett Allen's absence has a really big impact on the Cavaliers, and the quality of their basket protection has been reduced by a notch.
However, the Nets' offensive position does make the Cavaliers' defense somewhat difficult to take into account, Irving assisted the "Zhuang Shen" ball, Durant and Seth Curry each stood in the bottom corner, opened the Cavaliers' defense line, if the Cavaliers will receive the defense under the basket, the bottom corner vacancy is also fatal, the defense of this matter also depends on the cost risk, even if The little Curry this three-point shot 4 of 0, Durant only shot two three-pointers, do you dare to let them shoot?
Durant's game is relatively low-key, and the data of 25 points is not much like the legendary "basketball death god". Durant did not enter the "all-out" mode in terms of personal attacks, not that it was impossible, but that it was not necessary. The game was a bit like Irving's 60-point game, where Durant scored 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting, and the little brother killed happily, when the big brother was willing to do green leaves.
Durant, who likes to shake the sky on the keyboard, is a very broad-minded person in real-life games.
Durant gave the center of the stage to Irving for most of his personal offense, but he was not idle, delivering 11 assists, and filling the attributes of his tandem teammates as a game operator, and his best place in this game was not the assist, but the defense.
This ball is the embodiment of Durant's defensive attitude in this game, Irving passed the ball wrong, Garland broke the ball to counterattack, Durant chased all the way to the basket, blocked Garland's layup, Mills got the ball to plan a counterattack, Irving received a three-point hit. This was a situation where it was likely to lose two points, and Durant used active defense to turn it into a three-pointer for his team. Durant's defensive stats this game are 2 steals and 3 blocks, and his actual influence is not something that can be fully demonstrated by this simple 2+3.
Irving played and killed, and Adu passed the ball to defend, but when needed, KD still wielded the "scythe". The Cavaliers upgraded their grip on Irving in the fourth quarter, still "naming" Irving on the offensive end, further depleting him, and Durant stepped forward, one to catch three points, two dry mid-range, and extinguish the Cavaliers' flame of hope for reversal.
You're in charge of shining in the first three quarters, I'm in charge of drawing knives in the fourth quarter, and the giant planet "711" is a town treasure in the playoffs and the playoffs that follow.
Another highlight of the Nets' offense in this game is that they played a team around the "711", Durant and Irving one of them opened up the space without the ball, the other held the ball to attract the bag clip, Bruce Brown received the ball in the middle of the road to feed the ball, Claxton bottom line to eat cake, the Nets this routine is also playing smoothly.
Or that simple basketball truth, when you have two indiscriminate singles superstars, you can mobilize the opponent's defense, with teammates with high ball quotient, such as the "Nets Small Dream" Brown who contributed 18 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 steals in this game, and personal basketball and team basketball are docked.
In the first round of the playoffs, the Nets are coming, and their opponent will be the Celtics, Another of Irving's old clubs.
The Nets have played against the Celtics four times this season, losing three of them. Durant played in two games, Irving played only one, "711" played together in the March 7 game against the Greenshirts, that game Irving generally played 18-of-8 to score 19 points, Durant played well and bombed 37 points and 8 assists, but failed to let the Nets close the victory, because Tatum angrily scored 54 points, 34 points in the second half, and 18 points in the fourth quarter.
54 points is Tatum's second-highest NBA career regular season score, and his highest score in the playoffs is 50 points, from the 2021 first round, against the Nets. In that series, the Celtics won one game with Tatum's 50-point bombardment, and the other four were basically the Nets' clean and tidy battle, averaging 15.5 points in all four games.
The playoff showdown a year ago was once a masterpiece of the Nets' Big Three, Durant averaging 32.6 points per game, Irving averaging 24.8 points per game, AndHa averaging 27.8 points and 10.6 assists, harden is now playing the playoffs for the 76ers. The Celtics were disorganized in that series, with Jaylen Brown, who averaged 24.7 points per game in the regular season, missing due to left wrist surgery.
A year later in the first round reunion, the Nets did not have Harden, the Celtics had Brown, both were dual-core mode, and the Nets no longer had a numerical advantage in the star combination.
The Celtics had just 16 wins and 19 losses in their first 35 regular season games, but with 35 of the following 47 games, the team with the best record in the East at this stage. During this wave of 47-35 wins, the Celtics' offensive efficiency league second, Tatum averaged 27.9 points per game, Brown averaged 23.9 points per game, while the Greenshirts' defensive efficiency league first, Coach Uduka's infinite change of defense system after the completion of the run-in shine, Smart gave the best defensive player candidate's defensive strength.
The Nets will face two problems when playing Celtic, one is that Tatum and Brown use the block to target Irving or Curry Jr., the other is that the Celtics mainly play unlimited changes, and the Nets use the opponent's bag clip to create shooting opportunities for role players like the Cavaliers, which will test Durant and Irving's strong solution ability, and the Celtics' front and backcourt single defense ability is very strong.
The downside for the Celtics is the injury timeout of main center Robert Williams, which weakens the Greenshirts' basket, and there is an unknown on the Nets side, that is, whether Ben Simmons can get on. There have been reports that "West Emperor" may appear in the first round, but the Nets are very strict and do not give a clearer statement.
If Simmons can return healthy and play immediately, the Nets will at least have one more gate on the defensive end and one more "big bully" counterpoint on the offensive end. If Simmons can't play, the Nets are still "711".
Durant, in particular, tried his hand at the playoffs, and the playoffs could kill each other.