Kevin Durant, now in his first full season with the Phoenix Suns, explicitly stated that he did not want a tribute video in his return to Brooklyn. He did not think he deserved one. And in the days leading into Wednesday’s Nets-Suns matchup, many on social media debated whether the 14-time All-Star, who played just 129 games with Brooklyn, was with the franchise long enough to justify honoring him in that way.
Former fan favorites such as Bruce Brown and Joe Harris got tribute videos in their returns to Barclays Center. James Harden did not. And it remains to be seen whether Kyrie Irving will get one when the Dallas Mavericks visit Brooklyn on Feb. 6.
When the lights dimmed inside Barclays Center as Suns starters were announced, a tribute video is ultimately what Durant got despite his honest plea, about 24 seconds in length. The forward was greeted with cheers from Nets fans which quickly turned to boos each time he touched the ball on Wednesday night.
Durant, in superstar form, played like he still owned the place, too, pouring in a game-high 33 points with five rebounds and eight assists in Phoenix’s 136-120 win. Their victory snapped a two-game winning streak for the Nets (19-28), who have now lost 12 of their last 16 games.
“It’s good to be back here,” Durant said in a postgame interview with ESPN. “I love these rims. Love playing in front of this crowd, one of my favorite buildings. Excited we got the win. They beat us, they beat us up in our place last time, so we wanted to come out here and avenge that loss.”
Size mattered on Wednesday night. Ben Simmons was ruled out hours ahead of the game because of a left knee contusion suffered late in the fourth quarter of Monday’s win over the Utah Jazz, which was his first appearance in an NBA game since Nov. 6. The Nets were already without two rotation bigs in Day’Ron Sharpe (left knee hyperextension) and Dorian Finney-Smith (left ankle sprain), which left them thin in the frontcourt entering Monday’s matchup.
Phoenix’s Jusuf Nurkić took advantage, scoring virtually all 28 of his points at the rim. The Suns outscored Brooklyn 56-50 in the paint and dominated the glass 42-27. They shot 68.6% on two-point field goals and went 14-of-28 from deep.
“You don’t want to double team Jusuf Nurkić in order to give up shots to Eric Gordon and [Bradley] Beal and [Devin] Booker and Durant. That’s just not smart basketball,” head coach Jacque Vaughn said. “We missed some people tonight in order to have another big body out there to fix some of those things when Nurkić was rolling to the rim… But the rim attacks, them driving the basketball, was the biggest difference in that second half.”
Sparingly used forward Harry Giles III, 6-foot-10, did not get off the bench until the 1:26 mark in the third quarter. At that point the Nets trailed by 15 points. Unable to slow down a surprisingly lethal two-man game of Durant and Nurkić, Brooklyn was outscored 42-26 in the third quarter after trailing by just three points at halftime. The game was tied at 75 with 7:31 left in the third quarter.
And the Nets, who had 11 turnovers which led to 17 points for Phoenix, failed to make up much ground down the stretch, though they did cut their deficit to 10 points with 2:25 left in regulation. Allowing an opposing team to shoot 62% for the game is already difficult to overcome. It becomes even tougher when you foul 24 times, which led to 24 points at the free throw line for the Suns.
“You have to keep them off the line, but those guys are crafty,” Cam Thomas said. “They have great scorers so they know how to get to the line, but we just have to keep them off the free throw line.”
Six Nets players finished in double figures, led by Cam Thomas who had 25 points in his third consecutive start. Mikal Bridges added 21 points and six 3-pointers, the third time he has made at least six in his last five appearances.
The Nets will return to action on Saturday against the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center. It is unknown at this time whether Simmons or Finney-Smith will be available to play. Wednesday marked 24 days since Sharpe first suffered his knee injury against the Portland Trail Blazers.
“Both of those dudes are really day-to-day,” Vaughn said of Simmons and Finney-Smith. “We’ll see what [Dorian] feels like and Ben feels like tomorrow. We’ll kind of take tomorrow off… We’ll try to use these two days to catch our breath a little bit so we can go to Philly and try to get a win.”
