Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday clamped down defensively in a 110-95 NBA victory over the Los Angeles Clippers, their fourth win in the five games since Kyrie Irving was suspended.
Star guard Irving was suspended for at least five games by the Nets after using social media to publicize a film widely condemned as anti-Semitic.
Although he has sat out five games, Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said before Saturday’s contest that Irving would not return for yesterday’s clash with the Lakers.
Photo: AP
“We’re obviously missing [Irving] and we’ve got to look where those points are going to come from,” Durant said after the Nets opened their southern California sojourn with a hard-fought victory. “I think guys are doing that as a group.”
Durant excelled on both ends of the floor, scoring 27 points with six rebounds, three assists, two blocked shots and two steals.
Reserve Seth Curry scored 14 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter as the Nets finally put the back-and-forth battle away.
Durant, 34, is the first player to start a season with 13 straight games scoring at least 25 points since Michael Jordan had 16 25-point games to open the 1988-89 campaign.
He has made sure the Nets have weathered the absence of Irving, as well as the continuing struggles of Ben Simmons, who came off the bench and scored just one basket.
Durant said defense was key to the win.
“We hung our hat on just staying in front of our man and making them shoot tough shots over us,” he said after the Nets held Clippers star Paul George to just five-of-12 shooting and 17 points.
While the likely date of seven-time All-Star Irving’s return remains unknown, his situation appeared to be heading toward a resolution after NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Nets owner Joe Tsai said this week they had had productive talks with the player.
EARLY LOSSES: Some sports have already started at the Asian Games in Hangzhou ahead of the opening ceremony on Saturday, including volleyball, with a Taiwan loss South Korea’s bid for a third straight men’s gold medal in soccer at the Asian Games got off to the perfect start with a 9-0 thrashing of Kuwait on Tuesday, but coach Hwang Sun-hong is giving his players little time to enjoy it. With a more testing group match against Thailand today, Hwang is wary of complacency creeping in after his side ran riot against Kuwait in Jinhua, China, southwest of host city Hangzhou. “We’ll pretend this match never happened,” Hwang said after the Kuwait game, Yonhap news agency reported. “We have even more difficult matches coming up later, and we have
‘NOTHING HAS CHANGED’: Jenni Hermoso said that the striking players had been ‘caught by surprise’ by the call-ups, saying it was a strategy to intimidate them Striking Spanish internationals called up to the women’s team on Monday reiterated their desire not to form part of the squad in a new blow for the shaken the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). However, they were told by the government early yesterday that those who did not attend the team’s camps when called up would have to be punished. Spanish National Sports Council president Victor Francos said he would have to apply the country’s sports law. “If they don’t turn up, the government would have to apply the law, which is a pity for me, but the law is the
China hopes to make a splash with the Asian Games, which officially open tomorrow, but nationwide excitement has been muted as the economy sputters and some question the cost of the sporting extravaganza. Delayed a year by the COVID-19 pandemic, the quadrennial Games, kicking off in the eastern city of Hangzhou, will be China’s biggest sporting event in more than a decade, with more than 12,000 athletes from 45 nations competing in 40 sports. Organizers this week expressed confidence in holding a “magnificent” Games, thanks to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “important instructions” and great, broad-based efforts. Analysts agree the event would likely
Hong Kong is one of the smaller Asian Games teams by population, but when it comes to fencing the territory is a regional heavyweight with ambitious medal hopes. Edgar Cheung won gold at the Tokyo Games two years ago — Hong Kong’s first Olympic fencing title and first Olympic gold in any sport in 25 years. It turned Cheung into a celebrity overnight and prompted parents across the territory to rush and sign their children up for fencing classes. Cheung’s historic win in the foil competition was a much-needed dose of good news for a territory mired in social unrest and COVID-19 gloom
RSS