Scoreboard
Mavericks 131, Pistons 113
Nets 110, Knicks 98
Hawks 118, Wizards 103
Celtics 117, Bulls 94
Jazz 137, Thunder 101
Clippers 113, Suns 109
What went down
It’s not too much of a rivalry when one team can’t seem to beat the other, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining. The Brooklyn Nets went on to sweep the season series versus the New York Knicks—all while making it interesting to get there.
The Knicks built a huge 21-point lead in the third quarter, giving life to a Madison Square Garden crowd that had been making it tough for Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant throughout the game.
As if on cue, the Nets stormed back once the Knicks’ lead ballooned past the 20-point mark. They went on a 20-2 scoring run, with KD and Kyrie alternating buckets and finding shooters Seth Curry and Patty Mills.
The Knicks were still in it midway in the fourth, but Durant was relentless. This is what he did in the final quarter: 13 points, nine rebounds, and six assists. He finished with 32, 11, and 10. The Knicks, despite Alec Burks (24 points) and RJ Barrett (23 points) pouring on the points, just had no answer.
Irving chipped in 24 points to the cause, marking his first win at MSG as a Net. “This is like a second home to me,” Irving said after the game, which is never a good thing to hear for Knicks fans.
The Nets are on to the Play-In Tournament where all bets are off. The Knicks are back to the drawing board for next season, where they’ll have another shot at trying to call this matchup a “New York rivalry.”
Big-time ballers
Luka Doncic led the Dallas Mavericks to their 50th win of the season with a 26-point, 14-assist game.
Never to be outdone, Trae Young also put up big numbers as the Hawks beat the Wizards. Young scored 30 points and dished out 11 assists, in the process joining Oscar Robertson as the only two players ever to score 7,000-plus points and get 2,500-plus assists in their first four seasons.
In true Trae fashion, he celebrated with push-ups on the floor:
Keep Goin’??#WeMove pic.twitter.com/cdgWsn2s49
— Trae Young (@TheTraeYoung) April 7, 2022
What he said
As a Brooklyn Net, Durant has never lost a game to the New York Knicks. Is it personal? Perhaps.
"You know how much the Knicks fans don't like us. Especially now in this era, [me and Kyrie] not choosing the Knicks,” Durant said after extending his personal Knicks winning streak to seven.
Did you see that?
As if Durant’s bag of decades-worth of basketball tricks wasn’t enough, the coverage of the Knicks-Nets game took fans to past looks of NBA broadcasts:
