The Brooklyn Nets Are Balling And I Didn’t Expect It… At All
Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and the Nets had some issues, but now that it’s resolved, the team is scary good.
Okay, so this is kind of old news, but on Dec. 26, against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Kevin Durant passed Kobe Bryant on the 3-point leaderboard and passed Tim Duncan on the points leaderboard.
I bring up this old news from a couple of weeks ago because the Brooklyn Nets are on a 10-plus winning streak (at the time of this writing) and are in the top 2 in the Eastern Conference (also, at the time of this writing).
And I bring that news up because I didn’t see this happening.
With everything that went on last season -and how it affected the Nets on the hardwood- and everything that went on in the off-season, I didn’t think KD and company would get along.
They had a tumultuous 2022, and in my mind, it should’ve affected their chemistry this season.
But it didn’t.
After Steve Nash was fired early in the season, the Nets were rollin’; my forecast was completely wrong.
And apparently, all of the conflicts made their bond stronger (something that Kyrie talked about in the pre-season), according to Durant, who talked to ESPN’s Nick Friedell.
Via ESPN:
"It was one of those years you reflect on and you see the turning points in the organization," Durant said after scoring 23 points in 30 minutes. "We've seen different moments that brought us together as a group.
“You see, at this point now towards the end of the year, you start to see us come together and perform what we've been looking to do these last couple of years, which was a solid team that plays hard every night. So we went through a lot in this calendar year, but we're looking for bigger and better things in 2023."
Currently, Durant is putting up MVP-type numbers, Kyrie Irving is playing some of the best basketball of his career, and Ben Simmons is slowly getting back to form.
And more importantly, the Nets are just a couple of games away from the first seed.
They look like they have a real chance at the Larry O’Brien trophy and this was not something that I expected at all (I’m sorry for doubting you, KD!).
Let’s hope this is the real deal and isn’t a random hot streak because I would love to see Durant and Irving do their thing in the Finals again.