In his post-game interview, Durant was made to reflect on the fact that the two have not faced off since Christmas 2018. He said: “I wasn’t thinking about it until ya’ll started bringing it up, you know obviously, he’s a top-two, top-three player to ever play the game.”
“There’s always going to be excitement when he steps out on the floor.”
“We been around for so long that people seen so many battles between us two at the highest stage, you know people look forward to it. I guess it’s cool that we’re still relevant at an old age,” Durant jokingly added.
Durant also credited Anthony Davis’ playing as a challenge for the Nets’ defense.
“We was playing in spurts tonight. The perfect storm for them, they made a lot of shots, they got to the rim, the AD pick-and-roll was tough to stop,” Durant said.
“I like how we fought, got back into the game in the third quarter. We had a chance to win. But they made more shots down the stretch from us, plain and simple.”
James was not able to play in the Nets game because he is currently dealing with a groin injury. His absence placed the Nets in a very good spot. They have been playing much better basketball recently even with Kyrie Irving not playing.
There have been a lot of changes for the Nets as well. They have just fired Steve Nash and the issue with Irving is yet to go away. They now have a new head coach in Jacque Vaughn.