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Kevin Durant's 34-point triple-double leads Nets win despite 7 players in COVID protocols

Jack Baer
Staff writer
·2 min read
4

The Brooklyn Nets may have been missing seven players, but they still had Kevin Durant. And Patty Mills.

Despite a considerable handicap of more than a half-dozen players in the NBA's health and safety protocols, the Nets defeated the Raptors 131-129 in overtime on Tuesday. The team had a total of eight players available for the game.

The players missing were James Harden (36.2 minutes per game), LaMarcus Aldridge (23.6), Bruce Brown (22.5), DeAndre’ Bembry (19.6), James Johnson (18.2), Jevon Carter (11.7) and Paul Millsap (11.2). You may also recall the team had been missing Kyrie Irving, as well as Joe Harris, the latter out after undergoing ankle surgery.

Had the Nets been missing one more player, they were facing a forced postponement, such as what happened with the Chicago Bulls. That was actually somewhat close to happening, as Durant was only pronounced active hours before the game after being listed as questionable with right ankle soreness.

That ankle, and the rest of Durant's body, ended up doing work.

Durant finished with 34 points on 12-of-29 shooting with 13 rebounds and 11 assists, his second triple-double of the season. He played every minute of the second half and overtime.

That's one way to follow up an NBA season-high 51-point performance, and also a historic way, as Durant is now the first player in Nets history to post a 50-point game and triple-double on back-to-back games, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Mills shouldered plenty of the scoring load as well, scoring a season-high 30 points on 10-of-20 shooting (7-of-14 from deep). That outburst included a 3-pointer to send the game to overtime:

The win pushes the Nets' record to 20-8, still the top mark in the Eastern Conference. We'll see if a similar effort is needed to survive their next game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday. Vaccinated players who test positive for COVID-19 must remain out for 10 days or test negative for the virus 24 hours apart.