Brooklyn Nets superstar Kevin Durant must be feeling pretty relieved to have Kyrie Irving back on a full-time basis. But whatever joy or giddiness he felt seemed to evaporate in the aftermath of Sunday's explosion form Charlotte Hornets point guard LaMelo Ball, who stole the show during Irving's 2022 home debut to give the Hornets a huge win over the Nets.

Irving didn't play his best. As he put it, “mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, it felt okay, but just the jump shot wasn't falling tonight … not the result we wanted, but definitely grateful that we were part of history tonight and I got to do it here.”

Irving feels he made history by playing unvaccinated alongside his teammates. Had he expounded on the subject he might have talked more about the people who lost their jobs because they too were unwilling to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and its variants.

*Here's what Kyrie said about the legacy of his stand*

But Durant had his mind on basketball after the game, first and foremost, and there wasn't much to celebrate for him there. Yeah, Kyrie was back. Yeah, there was an electric atmosphere at The Clays. But in the end, this was another tough loss, and he's never thrilled after those. The Nets are now just 39-36, sitting in ninth place.

“It's great to see him out there, good to see the fans excited for him, unfortunately we took the L though,” said an unemotional Durant. “But we move forward knowing that we have him here, build on what we have and try to get a win next game.”

Durant was asked to reflect on where this team could have been had they had Kyrie available from Day 1.

“We're not even looking at it,” Durant said. “We're not even thinking about it that way. He's here now, this is the situation we're in, put our heads down and go to work.”

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The team talked about feeling exhausted. Irving was asked about any nervous jitters, and he said more than that he wished he had been better rested. It's possible that not being in the swing of playing every game caught up with him as much as anything else. His game flow this season has been play, play, wait a week or more, play, wait … it's probably tricky to find a rhythm.

On the other hand, he should be more fresh. With the play-in tournament right around the corner, he has only appeared in 22 games this season.

Irving admitted he didn't get to sleep until six in the morning after the late back-to-back in Miami the night prior.

But as Kyrie says, the Nets are just glad it's done. You can hear some tremendous relief in his voice when he says that part:

This saga can begin to fade into the rearview mirror, and the Nets can try to build upon some of the momentum they displayed down in Miami when they dismantled the Heat on Saturday. They're going to need to manage Seth Curry's ongoing ankle issue. Meanwhile, Ben Simmons is still not doing anything on the court in terms of practice. (Steve Nash said he's in the rehab-and-strengthening phase with his back issue.)

But with Kyrie Irving available for every game again, it's a much better place than they've been all season long.