BY HOOK OR BR BROOK'
Harden's triple-double, Kyrie's 34 help Nets fend off gritty Knicks
For the Nets, it was a laugher that ended up as an escape.
For the Knicks, it was a comeback that fell short and ended in a tantrum.
The red-hot Nets outlasted their cross-river rivals 117-112 in front of 1,637 at Barclays Center on Monday night. It wasn’t simple or easy, but it was a W added to the win column — a league-high fifth straight.
“You’re playing NBA players, they have nothing to lose when they’re down 18 points and you have everything to lose. That’s how this goes sometimes,” Nets coach Steve Nash said. “We got the win, which is the most important thing. Tip your hat to the Knicks. They played hard and made it difficult for us.”
The Nets built an 18-point lead, only to see the Knicks keep chipping away to cut it to three in the waning seconds. And after Kyrie Irving (34 points) and Julius Randle (33 points) led their teams in scoring, the final, fateful play fittingly came down to them as well.
When Randle went to put up a potential tying 3-pointer, Irving swiped and seemingly got a piece of the ball. Randle came back down and got called for a travel with three seconds left. After James Harden (21 points, 15 assists, 15 rebounds) iced the game at the free-throw line, Randle had to be restrained.
Referee Scott Foster called a travel, and said through a pool reporter that they ruled the ball was touched but not knocked out of Randle’s hands.
“I was either gonna foul early, but I saw him lining up for a jump shot. I felt I could get a good hand on it. Scott called travel,” Irving said. “I thought Julius made a good play afterwards putting it down. I was gonna foul him after that just to get him to the free-throw line. That’s how it looked. That’s how it went.”
And in the end the Nets — playing without Kevin Durant — won for the 13th time in 14 games, thanks to some tough defense when they needed it.
“We have to do that. We can’t be the pretty shot-making and easygoing team we’ve been. We’ve got to get dirty a little bit,” Harden said. “We’ve got to do the small things, dive on the floor, taking charges, being physical, boxing out, the small things.”
After the Nets fell behind 18-11 with seven minutes left in the first quarter on a jumper by Immanuel Quickley — who had 21 in his first career start — they reeled off the next eight straight to take the lead.
The Nets put together an extended 34-12 run that spanned the first and second quarters, hitting 13 of 16 from the floor and harassing the Knicks into 5 of 18 shooting.
After three Harden free throws, Brooklyn led 45-30 with 9:45 left in the half. They led 94-76 after a Landry Shamet 3-pointer with 2:50 left in the third.
“We got in a big hole in the first half. I thought we fought hard in the second half, I thought we did a lot of good things,” Tom Thibodeau said. “They’re an excellent team. If you let your guard down for two or three minutes they put a lot of points on the board in a hurry.”
But the Knicks outscored the Nets 28-21 in the fourth, behind 12 points by Randle and eight by RJ Barrett. Even after Harden sank a pair of three throws with 28.6 seconds left to seemingly ice it at 115-108, the Knicks kept coming.
Brooklyn gave up dunks by Barrett and Randle, and when the Knicks aggressively trapped an inbounds and Barrett tied up Joe Harris, the Knicks won the jump ball. They had a chance to tie, but Irving forced the travel with just three seconds left in regulation.
“I thought it was a tough call,” Thibodeau said. “I thought we had a lot of tough calls down the stretch.”