Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant has never struggled quite like this. We'd been told the Boston Celtics' defense was up there with some of the all-time great units, but to hold KD to this type of performance through three games? It's pretty shocking and disappointing for the Brooklyn Brigade.
Durant is averaging just 22.0 points through three games while shooting 19-of-52 in the series. Jayson Tatum, Marcus Smart, Grant Williams, Al Horford, Grant and Rob Williams have had him in jail. The same thing can be said for Kyrie Irving after his 39 points in Game 1, which featured a devastating loss at the buzzer that derailed this entire series for Brooklyn.
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But since that explosive Game 1 performance, Irving is just 10-of-30. The Celtics haven't just taken one Nets star away and allowed the other to cook, they've locked up both over the last two games. For all of the talk about Irving's full-time availability and how that would provide a boost, this was hard to envision.
"Basketball is when you just flow and you don't have to think about s–t. You don't have to worry about the little stuff. In my mind I'm just trying to see how I can help everyone. Sometimes I end up taking myself out the game."
-KD pic.twitter.com/2WFNTI2TvQ
— DaveEarly (@DavidEarly) April 24, 2022
After the game, Durant talked about how he may have actually overcorrected after watching film from the two losses up in Boston.
“I feel like in the first two games I was trying to be too aggressive,” Durant said. “You know, a team that's loading up on me, that's trying to take me out of all my actions I feel like I was trying to still force it the first two games and watching film a lot of my teammates were open and they were knocking down shots. So I felt my approach to this game was to play off of everybody, get in the flow of the offense, let the ball move and find me. I felt like I was making solid reads, I felt like we had a good flow. Probably should have took more shots, but I just tried to play the game the right way without being too aggressive or force the turnovers, I didn't want to get no live balls, just playing one-on-one out of the time out, I was just thinking too much to be honest this whole series. Like how I'ma approach the game. We got another game to play, another opportunity, and I'm looking forward to that.”
It's almost sad to hear Durant admit he was overthinking things. You know he's one of the best players on the planet, but his Nets team may simply be overmatched. Their third-best healthy player in this series so far has been Bruce Brown. For Boston, after Tatum and Brown, they can still claim the Defensive Player of the Year and a pretty solid point guard in Marcus Smart. Al Horford has really thrown the clock back, and they've gotten good effort out of guys like Grant Williams and even Payton Pritchard.
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Perhaps Bruce Brown was a little overzealous when he talked smack to Horford and Daniel Theis prior to the series.
“Just trying to figure out where the help is coming from,” Durant continued. “How I'ma be guarded in certain actions or where to make the right pass, when to be aggressive, when to let my teammates open it up for me. Sometimes basketball is when you just flow and you don't have to think about s–t, you know? You don't have to worry about the little stuff. In my mind I'm just trying to see how I can help everyone, how I can … sometimes I end up taking myself out the game.”
That's an intriguing quote. The Celtics stymied KD and got him thinking not acting. The Nets star wasn't in flow and he was wondering how to get his teammates involved when he gets doubled. Then sometimes he wouldn't even see the double and he'd rush a shot. That's something KD noted he saw when the team last faced Boston in the regular season.
“I seen in the first two games there wasn't a lot of space for me to operate to score so I didn't want to force it. … Maybe that's the wrong decision coming into this game. I shoulda been probably more aggressive to score. But I'm just trying to play it the right way.”
Durant can make another adjust for Game 4. And if there ever was a team to come back from down 0-3 (no team in 143 tries has been able to) it might just be this dude. KD and Kyrie have three rings between them. Patty Mills has another. But first they'll have to prove they can even shoot a decent clip from the field against this tenacious Celtics defense.
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