Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving combined for 62 points on Wednesday night as the Brooklyn Nets took down the Charlotte Hornets, 122-116. The Nets' two superstars seemed like an unstoppable force against a Hornets side who just had no answer for two of the top players in the NBA today.
When the game was in the balance, the shorthanded Nets turned to KD and Kyrie, who for their part, stepped it up when it mattered the most. Durant and Irving resorted to the pick-and-roll, which is not exactly something we've seen from the pair very often. It worked, though, and Charlotte just couldn't stop the combination play between the Nets superstars.
“We definitely should get to it a lot more,” said Irving of his pick-and-roll play with Durant, via Mark W. Sanchez of the New York Post. “We’ll see as we continue on, but it’s definitely a high-efficiency play.
“Me and him coming off screen-and-rolls with each other, being aggressive and making plays, it’s one of the good plays for our team.”
Durant echoed Kyrie's thoughts as he too expressed how potent the pick-and-roll can be when they execute it the right way. KD, however, warned that this is something they can't overly fall in love with:
“He’s a versatile player,” Durant said of Irving. “[It] allows us to play different ways in that pick-and-roll. I think we can both operate the same areas on the court, midrange, at the rim, 3-point line, off the dribble.
“We have to utilize it, but it’s got to be a balance. We can’t run it the whole game, but we got to figure out when’s the right time to use it.”
For his part, Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn clearly enjoyed the combination play from his two stars. The first-year shot-caller lauded KD and Kyrie for how they utilized the play to perfection:
“Getting those two to play together in pick-and-rolls can be lethal for us,” Vaughn said. “You don’t see it all the time. It was great for them to kind of produce and see how they can execute at the end of the game together.”
Could this be something we will be seeing more often from Durant and Irving? It seems like a very effective play that could work wonders for the Nets if they rely on it more heavily. The Charlotte Hornets can definitely attest to this.
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