“I threw some pitches that I shouldn’t have even tried… the really hard ones. With double and triple markings. But as long as I can do it with a smile on my face and my teammates don’t get too upset, it’s worth it.”. It’s Kyrie Irving’s analysis, 100% Kyrie Irving what’s more, after scoring 60 points in just over 35 minutes against the Orlando Magic (108-150)which is the worst team in the East (18-52) but had won five of its previous nine games and has one of the most effective defenses in the NBA since the All-Star break. What difference does it make: the Nets have two players against whom there is no antidote, who do not even notice what is put in front of them when they are on a roll. For the third victory in a row, on Sunday, Steve Nash’s team (without Kyrie, because it was played in New York and is still not vaccinated) needed 53 points from Kevin Durant to the Knicks. Squeezed all, necessary. This time, for the fourth in a row (they are already eighth in the East), it was 60 from Kyrie who, glupscould have been more: after a distant triple, the base sat down with 8:33 to go and with 94-128 on the scoreboard. doHow far could he have gone if he had proposed it on such a bright night and with so much time ahead? Better not imagine it.
Durant and Kyrie (only 19 games so far this season due to his rejection of the vaccine) are unstoppable, two of the greatest scoring talents in history. Which is why no matter what happens and no matter how dysfunctional they are, the Nets are a team whose ceiling will always be the ring, whose peak performance is beyond the reach of everyone else in the NBA. The question is if we will see that peak, if they will touch that roof. Meanwhile, we have nights like this one from Kyrie: 20/31 shooting, 8/12 3-point shooting, 12/13 free throw shooting. 41 points in the first half (56-86) with 14/19 and after a first quarter in which he added 16 of his team’s 48 (30-48), which ended the game with amazing numbers: 60% total shots, 59% triples, 35 assists for 53 baskets. Durant, whistling, accompanied with 19 points, 5 rebounds and 7 assists. And missing Ben Simmons (from whose back bad news comes), Joe Harris (who probably won’t play the entire course), LaMarcus Aldridge and Seth Curry. Almost nothing.
For the first time in history, two teammates exceed 50 points in two games in a row. AND for the first time the NBA sees two consecutive 60-point nights: Monday Towns at the Spurs, Tuesday Kyrie at the Magic. Until now it had only happened once, in 1962… but with a brace by the same player, (how not) WiltChamberlain. Kyrie he beat his personal record in the NBA (he was 57), also that of some Nets (another 57, by Deron Williams) that they had never scored 150 points without overtime. In 2006 they reached 157, but with two extensions. They lost (161-157) against some Suns in which, by the way, Steve Nash reached 42, now coach/psychologist/public relations of the Nets, a franchise that is more of an association, a collective with its own rules and a dynamic that a team that ended up being champion has never followed. Only the Nets, a matter of differential talent, can carry what they have (Kyrie’s vaccine, the transfer of James Harden, Durant’s injuries, doubts with Simmons, an eleven-game losing streak in February…) and be so applicants like anyone. Or, if you look at nights like this, plus.
Kyrie’s 41 points is the most in a first half since Kobe Bryant had 42 for the Wizards in 2003). And the season high one night after 36 (in the second against the Spurs) for Towns, raised in New Jersey like Kyrie himself. Two talents three years apart and who started playing in neighborhoods separated by less than 130 kilometers. For Kyrie it was the sixth game with at least 50 points. For the NBA season, the sixteenth (with two for the point guard, two for Durant, two for LeBron James and two for Jayson Tatum). AND the seventh in March alone (60 Kyrie and Towns, 56 LeBron, 54 Tatum, 53 Durant, 50 Kyrie and LeBron). The League is losing talent from its pockets. And that, pure talent beyond the borders of art, is Kyrie Irving. If he leaves everything else aside, one of the great scoring geniuses in basketball history.
The Heat beat the Pistons in a hurry
Very different was the night in Miami, where the leader of the East (46-24 now) fulfilled (105-98) against Detroit Pistons, only half a game better (18-51) than those Magic tortured by Kyrie. This game had nothing to do with the one in Orlando, but it was Useful for the Heat, now 2 1/2 games ahead of the Bucks with only 12 left to play. They have very close home field advantage in all the East playoffs, and we’ll see if they avoid the Nets in the first round (that’s how it will be if they play and win the play in between seventh and eighth). But bad news Jimmy Butler had ankle problems again and did not play in the second half.
It took too much for the Heat to beat a Pistons without Cade Cunningham, the wonderful number 1 in the last draft. The fault lay in a disastrous streak in the third quarter, closed with an 11-22 that has an intrahistory: with 68-54 with 6:46 to go, there were no more points from the locals and there were 19 (0-19) from the Pistons, who closed the third quarter ahead (68-73). In that stretch, Miami missed fourteen shots, eight from the three-point line. It took a very firm last quarter (37-25) and the appearance of an unexpected hero: Max Strus, in the rotation due to Butler’s injury, scored his 16 points in that last quarter, 12 in a row in a stretch of less than three minutes. And Tyler Herro (29 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists for the future Best Sixth Man in the NBA) made the key triples (from 96-94 to 99-94 with two minutes to go). Bam Adebayo finished with 16 points and 8 rebounds and Jerami Grant led the Pistons with 22.