They are already here. At the right time and against the most important rival. On the morbid night, away from home and with less than a month to start the playoffs. The Nets have conquered the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia giving an unprecedented basketball lesson for them this season, with an unprecedented group work, a hitherto unknown defensive capacity and an extraordinary victory that shows that everything that has been said about them is true: the rules do not fit them and they are the only team in the whole the competition that can make a regular season disastrous and emerge at the moment of truth. It doesn’t matter the rival, the field advantage or the terrible sensations they generate. Talent wins championships. And if there is something left over by the Nets, it is that: of talent.
The curiosity was felt in advance and the entire NBA was waiting for a game that could mean nothing, or could change everything. Nor has it been, of course, neither one thing nor the other, but it has shown that the Nets know they’re in his time of the season and what is it now or never. Ben Simmons, scapegoat for the Sixers in the transfer of a James Harden who wanted to leave Brooklyn quickly, went out to warm up before his audience and was very active on the bench, very involved in all the talks and very participatory dressed street, something that will surely continue until April, with back problems that have joined the last stages of the recovery of his mental health. The greetings between Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were not especially effusive while the base did hug DeAndre Jordan before the clash began. And the hostilities were unidirectional and made it clear from the beginning how the night was going to unfold.
Durant’s first basket (he faced Embiid in the first quarter) was a jump shot; in the second, he smashed the rim. Kyrie made the third, in the form of a triple. The result there was 7-4, 13-7 with 5 minutes played and 4 of 4 shots by Durant. At the end of the first quarter: 40-23 and early end of a game that was clean and completely New York. Without great fanfare of a Steve Nash who sat for a long time, as if convinced of what he was going to see that night. And with a brutal overwhelming capacity by the Nets, who led 72-51 at halftime and left the Sixers with 19 points in the third period, theoretically the reaction that there was not: 102-70 with 12 minutes to play that were of local suffering, verification of facts, of a resounding obviousness that people have not wanted to believe or that the Nets have been determined to deny us. But there it is. And the Nets are (very) very good.
The two sides of the coin
In the Nets everything worked and to say that things were not the same in the Sixers would be a distortion of reality. Totally unexpectedly, the New York defense was extraordinary: left an offense of more than 108 at 100 points and a team that, with the Harden-Embiid duo on court, which has given 5 games (the shooting guard did not play against the Heat) and has been beaten for the first time, has produced 133, 125, 123, 125 and 121 points. The Nets left the Sixers with a pyrrhic 32.9% in field goals, something that could not be replaced with many attempts of 3 (36, for 14 hits) or going up to 30 times to the personnel line. 19 of them Embiid, who thus decorated what was a very bad game: 27 points and 12 rebounds, but 5 of 17 in field goals and an individual duel in which Andre Drummond (7+7, with 3 blocks) managed to resemble, at certain moments, something similar to a defender.
The Harden thing was even worse: Bruce Brown was in charge of defending him and the blocks left him many times in front of Kyrie, who did not shy away from the fight. 3 of 17 in shots, no basket of 2, 11 very poor points and -30 with him on the court. Completely overcome by the situation, he left the Wells Fargo Center, filled with a stunned crowd, crestfallen. Doc Rivers took him out of the rotation early, guessing what was coming, but there was no possible alternative. Harden passed Reggie Miller for the all-time 3-pointers list, but that was his only joy of the night. The shooting guard, acting as a point guard, played (very) poorly against the rival he may have to overcome to win a ring that has always been elusive. He already threw the Durant dart in the preview of the duel: “I understand what he did. After all, Kyrie and I already have a ring and he doesn’t.“. More fuel to the fire.
Kevin Durant went to 25 points, 14 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals and 1 block and nobody remembered his 5 losses thanks to his +34 on the court. Kyrie, full of wisdom, made 22 + 4 + 5, 5 of 11 in triples and a +27. The guest at the party was Seth Curry, for the curiosity another ex-Sixers that the Nets got in a transfer in which everyone considered the winner, perhaps before time, to Daryl Morey: 24 points, 10 of 14 in field goals and 4 of 8 in triples. Brown’s defense was masterful, just like that of a very successful James Johnson from the bench (16 points, 6 of 7 shooting from the field, 3 of 3 triples and 5 blocks). In addition, Patty Mills had her usual contribution (10 points) and the absence of plans gave way to an unexpected, but extraordinary ensemble.
The Nets, touched by a wand that is theirs, were ahead the entire game, they scored 28 points in transition to 8 of their rivals, they managed to win by 36, they reached 40 points off the bench and caused 18 turnovers to his rivals, in addition to distributing 29 assists to 19 for the Sixers, lost before a crowd that belongs to a city that understands basketball and knows that what they saw the same is not worth them to get beyond the second round of playoffs. Something they haven’t done, by the way, since 2001, with Allen Iverson (present at the duel), Dikembe Mutombo, Larry Brown and company. One more game that in the end is not one more game. A turning point. And we’ll see how things turn out. But maybe, just maybe, Daryl Morey was wrong. And James Harden neither, Clear.
