Kevin Durant reminded everyone how ridiculous he can be and it was beautiful
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The Brooklyn Nets needed their star, Kevin Durant, to do something special in Game 5 on Tuesday night and man did he ever deliver with a performance that will not soon be forgotten and one that was truly impressive and historic.
Durant, if you somehow missed it (and shame on you if you did), played all 48 minutes against the Bucks and finished with 49 points, 17 rebounds, and 10 assists. Those numbers are something we’ve never seen in a NBA playoff game before.
And those numbers are why the Nets were able to comeback from a 16-point halftime deficit and pull off a 114-108 win that in all likelihood saved their season. Twenty of those points came in the fourth quarter when things mattered most and when everyone knew KD was getting the ball.
But nobody could stop him because KD, as we’ve seen so many times in his career, can have long stretches where he’s unstoppable no matter what you try to do.
He’s the best basketball player in the world, which can be easy to forget lately because we haven’t seen a ton of him on the court over the past two years. Durant missed all of last year with his Achilles injury and played in just 35 games this year thanks to various minor injuries.
Now he’s healthy and he’s able to remind everyone of his greatness, which is something Milwaukee knows all too well this morning.
What made Durant’s Game 5 performance all the more amazing was that Kyrie Irving wasn’t in the lineup due to an ankle injury and James Harden made his return from a hamstring injury but had just five points in a very gutty 46 minutes.
Nets coach Steve Nash, whose postgame hug with KD became a funny meme, said his team wouldn’t have won if Durant didn’t play all 48 minutes and he was right. If Durant sat at all in Game 5 then Brooklyn would be heading to Milwaukee down 3-2 and their season would likely soon be over.
Reggie Miller somehow wondered after the game if the Nets should sit Durant for Game 6, which is one of the most mind-boggling things I’ve ever heard. Twitter felt the same about that. There’s no way in any world that the Nets would do something like that. It’s just silly to even thing about that.
What Durant did last night was special and was one of those performances that we were lucky to sit back and watch.
Throw all the accolades at that piece of art that Durant gave to the world.
Because it was a thing of absolute beauty.
Quick hits: Aaron Rodgers trolls Packers… Wild video of a knuckleball… Wilson and Carroll are still friends… And more.
– Aaron Rodgers trolled the Packers while talking about his “quiet” offseason.
– This Edgertronic video of Orioles prospect Mickey Jannis’ knuckleball is pretty darn wild.
– Russell Wilson awkwardly crashed Pete Carroll’s press conference to tell everyone they’re still friends.
– Trevor Bauer bashed MLB for cracking down on foreign substances.
– Ian Poulter showed just how insanely deep the U.S. Open rough is at Torrey Pines this week.