The Brooklyn Nets absolutely smacked the Miami Heat on Saturday night. The vaunted #HeatCulture everyone always talks about seems to be cooling off a bit. The top seed in the East (now in a tie with the Philadelphia 76ers, but percentage points behind) has lost six of their last eight games. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving led a scorching-hot Nets team to a crucial 110-95 victory, blowing the Heat out of the water in the second quarter.

The Brooklyn Brigade is gaining steam as Nets fans can be heard in more arenas around the league lately. We saw Durant at one point in Sunday's South Beach showdown game beckoning some light cheers for the away team at FTX Arena. Hark, was that some Brigaders who made the trek, we heard caroling?

Of course, most New Yorkers will remind you their city is a Knicks town, and rightly so. They know the Knicks haven't been feared since the days of Patrick Ewing and later teams featuring Allan Houston, Larry Johnson, Latrell Sprewell, and Marcus Camby. But, still, that franchise has had nearly 75 years to build a following. Those fans are absolutely of the die-hard variety. Some of those fans are standing up chanting de-fense in the second quarter of a December game against the Detroit Pistons.

The Nets are new to NYC. They have been seen as the irrelevant little sibling in the market, despite their success in New Jersey during the Jason Kidd days when they went to back-to-back NBA Finals.

However, Kevin Durant feels that narrative has shifted at least a bit since he came to Brooklyn in 2019, and he's not afraid to stir it up.

Remember when Julius Randle and Reggie Bullock were asked last season about an upcoming game vs. the Nets' Big Three of Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden? Rather than exchange pleasantries, Randle and Bullock touted their own team as having a “Big 15.” They were just boosting their own squad, which was totally fine. But Durant remembered. They had perhaps missed a chance to do what most opponents do and simply say nice things.

So KD called it back and said his team had a Big 15 in May 2021, just sarcastically. In The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith, the author highlights how Michael Jordan used to famously remember even the tiniest of slights and use them to fuel his own rampage. Maybe KD has some of that in him.

After the game against the Heat, Durant spotted a local Knicks beat reporter.

“Stefan, you following the Nets now?” Durant asked mischievously.

It sounds like the reporter (Stefan Bondy, who usually covers the Knicks for the New York Daily News), replied with a “yes, sir.”

Then, after a pause, Bondy admitted his “Knicks are now irrelevant.”

“Oh, all right,” says Durant with a smile. “They are!?” he then asks incredulously, feigning some wicked shock. “That's the biggest team in the — I thought the Nets were irrelevant,” Durant exclaims, as the room of reporters start to laugh.

SNY Nets had the clip:

No doubt, Durant was feeling himself as the Brooklyn buzz only grows with just eight games remaining in the regular season. While the Nets are just in eighth place, now that Irving is full-time again and dropping some major hints about his Nets future that should please Durant, it's not hard to imagine KD beginning to carve out some major fan market share equity in his mind. He may not get you old-school Knicks fans, but what if he gets your children to root for the black-and-white instead of the blue-and-orange?

Easy Money Sniper probably pictures a NYC that's more divided than it began when he first arrived by the time he hangs it up. For now, yeah, the Knicks are pretty much irrelevant. Tankathon.com projects the Knicks for the 12th pick in the draft. It's not impossible to find a star there. But it's certainly not as easy with a top pick. Durant was selected second. Kyrie was selected first.

The Knicks may be still more beloved than the Nets, but they're mostly irrelevant until they prove otherwise. Knicks beat reporters might get used to switching to the other local beat this time of year.