BOSTON — Kevin Durant experienced a lousy day, and it price the Nets Game 1.
A different could price tag them the collection.
“We have a further possibility to occur listed here and get a ‘W’ on their dwelling ground,” Durant mentioned. “We’ve got to consider to transfer earlier this seem at movie but shift past it and get prepared for Match 2.”
Durant can — and has to — get better. And which is a thing almost never said, with a scarce off match staying a shock to the procedure.
And irrespective of it, the Nets only dropped Sunday’s playoff opener 115-114 on Jayson Tatum’s last-second layup. That Durant got caught flat-footed on that buzzer-beater underscored how weak his afternoon was.
The Nets need to have him again to his regular self for Wednesday’s Activity 2.
“They did a great career forcing me absent, aiding in the paint. I just have to be additional essential in my moves,” Durant claimed. “Some shots went in and out for me. I played rapid and turned the ball over. I’ve just received to gradual down and participate in my game. But they did a superior position of creating me see bodies.”
And truly feel bodies.
Durant didn’t just merely participate in fast. Boston sped him up, harassing him into taking pictures 9 of 24 with six turnovers to finish minus-13.
“Teams are heading to be made to consider away some of my catches and my opportunities,” Durant reported. “I’ve been dealing with it for a though, so it is on me to hold enjoying by way of it. I got some fantastic seems to be there in the 1st, next fifty percent, they didn’t drop, perhaps speeding a little little bit. My fundamentals weren’t down, seeking to conquer [the double team], trying to perform ahead of the assistance arrives.
“Sometimes I rushed my photographs. By wanting at the game and observing in which I can be far better individually and shifting my state of mind, see the place I go from there. It is a journey, looking forward to the future recreation.”
The Nets require to alter for that subsequent match, simply because Match 1 was the most brutal protection Durant has confronted due to the fact previous year’s playoff reduction to Milwaukee. PJ Tucker had roughed him up off the ball, and Boston coach Ime Udoka — a Steve Nash assistant at the time — took notes that he set to use Sunday.
“They were being seriously physical, placing their arms on him a lot. They surely crowded his room. The physicality, they were being capable to really junk him and get two hands on him much more than the video game warrants,” Nash stated. “Kevin’s Kevin Durant for a purpose. He figures points out on his personal incredibly, quite properly.”
Even though many groups have blitzed Durant immediately after he receives the ball, the Celtics did not wait that extended. Their fronting and physical ball denial built it difficult for him to even get the ball. He started out out 1-for-6 with three turnovers in the 1st quarter.
“The dude is 7-foot with a shot like that. It is tough to definitely halt him,” Marcus Intelligent claimed. “But you just have to make it as hard and challenging the complete recreation as you can and just give him various seems, and which is what we did.”
Tatum, Grant Williams and Al Horford late took turns on him, but Boston blowing up the Nets’ offensive steps was the essential. They busted up 1 late select-and-roll by brazenly pushing Durant although he was screening for Irving. In other situations, Williams and Daniel Theis raked the ball absolutely free as he arrived out of choose-and-rolls.
Durant missed a likely dagger 3 in the waning seconds. And in the one most important enjoy, when the Nets blitzed Good, Durant bought caught flat-footed, ball-viewing on Tatum’s back slice for the winner.
“Nothing to overthink with Kevin Durant: We know who he is. We know he’s heading to go back and watch movie, get ready,” Irving reported. “We know how substantial his expectations are for himself. So we’re not heading to overthink it.”
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