The moment that Nets fans and the entire basketball world have been waiting for has arrived. On the first night of the 2020-21 NBA season, Kevin Durant made his return from a ruptured Achilles injury that sidelined him all of last season.
In Durant’s first game as a Net, he looked as comfortable as he could be after such a long layoff, as he was driving to the rim with the same quickness and explosiveness as the KD of old as well as getting the same lift on his jump shots that allows him to rise just high enough to overcome the reach of his defender to get a clean shot off. Durant only needed 25 minutes to make his mark on this blowout victory, as he finished with 22 points on 7-of-16 shooting to go with five rebounds and three assists.
“He’s done everything and he is in absolutely the ultimate position to come back from this injury,” Steve Nash said.
Kyrie Irving‘s Game Continues to Evolve
Durant’s co-star, Kyrie Irving, didn’t seem to be too rusty following his long layoff as a result of getting surgery on his right shoulder in February. The New Jersey native finished with 26 points on an efficient 10-of-16 shooting from the field including four three-pointers.
The court was Irving’s canvas out there, as the point guard showed great control of the ball while breaking his defenders off the dribble and knowing just the right gears to hit on drives in order produce beautiful finishes at or near the rim. What was particularly incredible to watch was when Irving spun away from his defender in the left-wing and crossed him up just near the basket to create the right amount of space to get the layup to go inside.
While Irving displayed a knack to score the ball in a multitude of ways and the ability to take over games to lead his team to dominant victories, his main focus this season isn’t to win an MVP or make an All-NBA team.
“As a young player, you think scoring a bunch of points, doing a bunch of things, getting individual accolades is great,” Irving said. “I definitely was going after those things. And now, I really don’t care for any of those individual accolades or goals. I just want a championship with a great team that I can look back on in history and say ‘we did it our way and we had fun doing it.’”
Caris LeVert Stands Out in New Role
Durant and Irving weren’t the only two Nets players to stand out in this game. Caris LeVert, who many people think is more than capable of filling the role of being the Nets’ third star, had 20 points, nine rebounds, and five assists in 25 minutes off the bench.
The opener proved that LeVert is a better fit as the Nets’ sixth man instead of slotting in next to Irving as the team’s starting shooting guard, as LeVert was able to play isolation style basketball to find looks he’s capable of getting off the pick-and-roll, drives and probing in the paint. There is a huge dropoff in talent when you take Irving and Durant off the floor, so in order to keep defenses honest and continue to put points up on the board, it’s important to have a rock-solid Sixth Man that can carry some of that load and create opportunities for themselves.
LeVert looked very smooth with the rock all night, and it would be a huge waste of his talent if he was playing the majority of his minutes next to two superstars since he’d likely be relegated to a catch-and-shoot type of guard. As his coach said, he can be their Manu Ginobili type, and if you can be put in the same breath as arguably the best sixth man to ever play the game that also just so happened to win several championships in his career, then you’re clearly doing something right.
Overall, the Nets looked very dangerous offensively and didn’t even give a team many consider playoff-bound in the Western Conference a chance to win this game at all at any point. Not everything is going to click on all cylinders every night the way it did for the Nets in this game, but assuming they stay healthy, there isn’t going to be too many nights where Irving and Durant don’t put up superstar numbers, and if LeVert can continue to thrive in his role off the bench while the Nets get better contributions from Spencer Dinwiddie and Joe Harris in their newfound roles, then it’ll be hard to imagine the Nets not making a deep playoff run this year.
