Nets Take Out Cavs Face Boston Next

 

The Brooklyn Nets clinched the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference of the NBA playoffs after defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers 115-108 Tuesday night at the Barclays Center.

Brooklyn started strong as Kyrie Irving knocked down all of his shots in the first half of the game and Kevin Durant led in assists and added 12 points.  Cleveland started to close in on the scoring gap after halftime, but the Nets never lost their lead in the game and Durant and Irving hit key baskets down the stretch as they held off the Cavs for the win.

“We just stay poised,” said Durant.  “Sometimes they just throw curveballs at us defensively. It may slow us down a little bit, but I think we handled everything pretty solid.  Even though they play different defenses we still got solid looks that just didn’t go down.”

The Nets had 14 turnovers in the game. The Cavs had nine steals and five of those were in the third quarter.

 

 

 

“We created a lot of separation, up 20 gives you a lot of breathing room,” said Nets head Coach Steve Nash. “We had a stretch there where we had a hard time scoring and a stretch there where we had a hard time getting stops, but at the end of the day we built that lead and that was the reward.”

The Nets starting five were Durant, Bruce Brown, Andre Drummond, Seth Curry and Irving. The team had high energy and led 40-20 at the end of the first quarter. Irving had 11 points. Drummond added six points, Brown seven and Durant had eight points.

In recent games Durant scored less in the first quarter, but excelled in assists.  Durant had 2 points, but five assists in the first quarter against the Houston Rockets on April 5. Coach Nash was asked pregame whether Durant focused more on passing the ball. “I think he does do a great job of finding a balance and still scores the ball at an extremely high level and an efficient level,” he said.

Irving and Durant kept up ball movement in the second quarter while Nic Claxton (13 points off the bench) added defense with an impressive block on Kevin Love. The Nets were ahead 57-43 at halftime. Irving had 20 points, four assists and one rebound. Durant had 12 points, seven assists and five rebounds. Claxton led the team with six rebounds by the end of the first half.

The Cavs applied more pressure in the third quarter and outscored the Nets 30-28, yet Brooklyn pushed back and led 85-73 at the end of the third quarter. The Nets had four steals in the third quarter, two of those were by Brown.

Brown and Claxton stepped up even more in the fourth quarter. Brown had five of his eight total assists in the fourth quarter.  Claxton and Brown each had 9 total rebounds for the game.

Because of the shooting in the Brooklyn subway earlier in the day,  It was a sensitive time in several ways, which could have affected the players but Brooklyn pushed through successfully. Said coach Nash, in Tuesday’s pregame, addressed both the media and the players. “Our community was affected this morning in a tragic and unfortunate senseless way,” Coach Nash said. “That’s the subway stop for our practice facility and for our office. My kids go to school not exceedingly far, so it does hit home and you just feel for all who was affected.”

Irving led the Nets with 34 points and 12 assists. Durant added 25 points and 11 assists. Cleveland’s guard Darius Garland gave Brooklyn fits all night tying Irving with 34 points. 

The Nets will next take on the Celtics in Boston in round one of the playoffs Sunday afternoon. 

 

Sports Editor Andrew Rosario contributed to this article.