Player grades: Kevin Durant scores 34 as Nets beat Hawks 120-116
The Brooklyn Nets hosted the Atlanta Hawks on Friday and won 120-116. This was the first of four meetings between the two teams this season.
Kevin Durant had 34 points and five assists for the Nets and Kyrie Irving had 33 points and 11 rebounds. TJ Warren had 14 points off the bench and Seth Curry scored 11 points off the pine.
Trae Young had 33 points and nine assists for the Hawks and Bogdan Bogdanovic had 31 points off the bench. Clint Capel had 15 points and 11 rebounds.
Neither team played much defense, as expected, but the Nets made more shots when the game mattered. Brooklyn had its offense flowing all night and they did a good job of staying competitive on the boards despite being undersized compared to Atlanta.
The Nets turned the ball over too much and they still struggle with defending the paint. Brooklyn led by as much as 12 points in this game despite the Hawks missing Dejounte Murray, John Collins, and De’Andre Hunter.
In the end, Brooklyn did a good job of limiting Young in the second half and Durant and Irving carried the team offensively. This was a good win for the Nets, albeit underwhelming, without Yuta Watanabe and Nic Claxton.
Here are the Nets’ player grades:
Kevin Durant: A
Durant was on fire from the time that the game started. He was essentially carrying the offense in the first half. He did whatever he wanted to do, whether it was pulling up for his patented mid-range jumper or driving to the rim. Durant is a scorer, but he’s more likely to shoot jump shots than he is to get to the rim so it was good to see him attack the basket more. It’s probably a result of fatigue, but turnovers were an issue for him.
Kyrie Irving: A
Irving let the offense come to him in the first half as he saw that Durant had it going. Irving eventually started to look for his shot as he found success getting to the rim and either finishing strong or drawing fouls. He also had his pull-up game working as he stopped on a dime several times to shoot over his defender. Irving had some trouble staying in front of Trae Young, but that is a tough task for any player to do. Irving started the second half on fire as he was able to hit three’s with impressive consistency, no matter how difficult the shot was.
Ben Simmons: B
Simmons was stuffing the stat sheet as he’s known to do throughout his career. Simmons wasn’t necessarily aggressive looking for his own shot, but he was persistent in pushing the pace and trying to create opportunities in transition. Even though Simmons fouled too much, he did play effective defense, especially lurking in the passing lanes. There were times that Simmons tried too hard to make something happen on the break and it led to some unforced turnovers.
Joe Harris: C
Harris didn’t have the most explosive game, but he was solid on offense. He didn’t try too hard to look for his shot, but he was intentional in being ready to shoot the ball when it came to him. Harris also did a good job of finding the open man without turning the ball over. He also did a good job of filling the lanes on the break so that he could get some easy looks from the three-point line before the Hawks got their defense set.
Royce O'Neale: B
O’Neale had a tough task tonight as he had to play bigger than usual with the absence of Nic Claxton. O’Neale did an admirable job on the boards and was vital in boxing out the likes of Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu. O’Neale had a decent night shooting the ball, but he also was instrumental in keeping the offense flowing by finding the open man when the ball was swung to him.
Seth Curry: B
Curry was unable to find much open space on the perimeter as the Hawks made sure to close out to him hard or not leave his airspace when providing help defense. Not sure why, but Curry didn’t look to have much burst when he was trying to use his dribble to create space. Eventually, Curry was able to hit some shots far from the basket either when the defense was in scramble mode or off an offensive rebound.
Edmond Sumner: C
Sumner provided good energy off the bench by hounding the ballhandler whenever he had a chance to do so. He did a great job of finding the open man and cutting without the ball as he came up with a big dunk as a result of the off-ball movement. Sumner had some trouble staying in front of Trae Young and he got into some foul trouble at critical moments of the game.
TJ Warren: B
Warren didn’t do much scoring in the early going, but after awhile, bubble TJ Warren came alive. He was doing a little bit of everything. Warren was hitting some critical jump shots in this back-and-forth game and he played some incredible defense including picking Trae Young’s pocket clean.
Day'Ron Sharpe: D
Sharpe got some big minutes in the first half when Simmons got in foul trouble. In his time on the court, Sharpe did a good job rebounding the ball and protecting the rim. However, Sharpe wasn’t able to provide much offensively and Atlanta picked on him on defense so it was hard to keep him in the game for too long.
