DETROIT — The Pistons were a classic trap game, and the Nets fell right into it. Until Kevin Durant pulled them out with a classic performance.
With Brooklyn listless and losing, Durant put on one of the best displays of his illustrious career. He carried the Nets to a 124-121 come-from-behind victory before 19,488 at Little Caesars Arena, their season-high sixth straight win.
Durant scored 43 points and Kyrie Irving added 38 to lead the Nets back from a 19-point deficit. It’s the third time this season they have both topped 35 in a game, the first time teammates have done so since Durant and Russell Westbrook in 2011-12. And it was Durant catching fire in the third that swung the game.
He poured in 26 in their 44-25 third, the highest-scoring period of his career.
“I usually know how many shot attempts I’ve had. When I forget, that’s when I’m super, super in the zone. I don’t know what my shot attempts or my points are,” said Durant, who was an uber-efficient 14 of 22, and 3 of 5 from deep. “I felt the ball was coming into my hands so fast that I couldn’t even process it in my mind. I looked up and I’m like, ‘Damn it, I have 39.’ I didn’t know.”
With the Nets (19-12) down 12 with 3:19 left in the third, Durant poured in 20 points in a 23-9 blitz that gave them their first lead heading into the fourth. That’s where they used a 9-2 run to earn their ninth win of the last ten.
“And you thought the World Cup was exciting! We tried to top that,” Jacque Vaughn said. “They were doing different things: Not doubling on the post, doubling on the post, doubling him in pick-and-roll. … He was pretty patient overall, and then when the water started running, it started pouring.”
The dam burst, and Detroit (8-24) couldn’t stop it.
The Nets had fallen behind 23-8 right out of the gate on a free throw by Jaden Ivey (19 points), their defense made to look like a sieve. An Ivey layup pushed it to 69-50 with 1:16 left in the half. But Durant blitzed them in the third.
Trailing 87-75 after a Marvin Bagley layup, Durant started his devastating blitz with a short jumper. Then he started driving and getting to the line, and finally hit three 3s in the final 49.9 seconds of the third. The last gave Brooklyn a 98-96 lead with 3.1 seconds left — the Nets’ first of the game.
It was deadlocked at 104-all after Alec Burks’ jumper with 9:34 to play, but the Nets retook the lead with a 9-2 run. Edmond Sumner’s free throws gave them a 113-106 lead midway through the fourth that they never surrendered.
“[Durant’s] a special guy,” Sumner said. “He amazes me every time.”
Clinging to a 122-121 edge with 9.3 seconds left, Durant sank two at the line. And after Nic Claxton blocked a 3-point attempt by Bojan Bogdanovic (26 points) it was fittingly Durant who grabbed the clinching rebound.
It capped one of his finest games. And at 34, broached the question of whether this is the best extended run of his career.
“Mentally I understand the game more. I’m not too surprised by anything that’s thrown at me.” Durant said. “So, yeah, I’ll say I’m on a different level of mentality than I was as a younger player. … I’ve had some great stretches before [but] this is pretty solid. … I try not to compare, but mentally I’m getting better and I’m starting to understand on a different level.”
Irving and Vaughn said this is the best they’d seen him.
“To be up close? Yeah. The numbers show,” Irving said. “When we’re out there it doesn’t necessarily feel like that because he makes it look so easy. … When he gets on stretches like this you want to play well alongside him.”
The Nets’ two biggest comeback have come in the last two games: Down 18 in Toronto and 19 on Sunday. Durant had a huge hand in both.
“You see it in a variety of ways, which means his game is getting better still,” Vaughn said, “which is pretty difficult to say but some truth behind it.”
