Tag: Kevin Durant

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Kevin Durant turns down Trae Young late as Brooklyn Nets gather another street win

Trae Young had recently nailed a 3-pointer followed by a brand name slippery layup to slice the Atlanta Hawks’ shortage to one point with a little more than three minutes to play.

Yet, the next time down the floor, Young watched Kevin Durant squat in a defensive stance before him. Durant’s excellent defense on Young over those most recent three minutes was key in the Brooklyn Nets’ 113-105 triumph over the Atlanta Hawks Friday night.

“Just taking on the matchup was cool,” said Durant, who finished with 31 points. “These small point guards man, they’re so crafty and quick. It’s also fun taking on that matchup, he’s one of the best players in the league.”

The Hawks attempted to run activities to get Durant off of Young. However, Durant actually constrained the Hawks’ star into a turnover, then, at that point, hindered Young’s shot experiencing significant change and effectively safeguarded one more drive as the Nets completed the game on a 10-3 run.

At a certain point, Durant banged into Young as he was setting a screen and was required a foul. Youthful went chest-to-chest with Durant before authorities stepped in and called twofold specialized fouls.

“I was a little too physical there with that action and I kind of pushed him a bit,” said Durant, who said he’s known Young since the point guard was 10 years old. “He wanted me to get up out of his space and I respect that. Just a part of the game. Nothing personal, it’s all competition.”

Said Young about the moment: “We’re good.” Young had 31 points of his own in the game but was just 2-of-7 shooting in the fourth quarter with two turnovers.

After not playing him in the principal half, Nets mentor Steve Nash went with Nic Claxton at focus rather than LaMarcus Aldridge down the stretch. His length alongside Durant and James Johnson stuffed the Hawks, who shot only 6-of-22 and oversaw only 14 focuses in the final quarter.

Recently, the Nets finished a rebound win in Dallas by holding the Mavericks to only 13 focuses in the final quarter. Brooklyn has now won seven of its last eight street games.

“[Defense provides] ultimate confidence,” said James Harden, who had 20 points and 11 assists. “We’ve been having a lot of ups and downs, a lot of lineups and whatnot. We’ve just been trying to figure it out. It felt really good to just guard.”

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NBA player P.J. Tucker defends Kevin Durant in a dispute with Michael Rapaport

NBA player P.J. Tucker is agreeing with Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant.

Durant was uncovered by Michael Rapaport for utilizing homophobic slurs in a private Instagram discussion. The two were reviling and throwing insults at one another and the previous NBA MVP considered Rapaport a “f—kin pale c—k sucker.”

Tucker, who plays for the Milwaukee Bucks, disclosed to TMZ Sports on Wednesday that he’s Durant’s side.

“He didn’t do nothing wrong,” Tucker told the website.

Rapaport posted screenshots of the discussion with Durant on Twitter.

“I receive threats and disgusting messages DAILY, but never in my wildest dreams did I think @KDTrey5 would be among them,” Rapaport wrote on Twitter. “The Snake himself is now threatening me, bringing up my wife and wants to fight. This is supposed to be America’s sweetheart right? #ImDaRealMVP.”

On Thursday, Durant addressed the exchange with Rapaport.

“I’m sorry that people seen that language I used. That’s not really what I want people to see and hear from me,” Durant said. “Hopefully I can move past it and get back out on the floor.”

Durant and Rapaport have had a relationship previously.

In 2018, Durant’s ESPN show “The Boardroom” had Rapaport on as a visitor. Rapaport later posted a clip from the demonstration of the two discussing seats for the NBA Finals while Durant was with the Golden State Warriors.

In any case, since Rapaport uncovered Durant via social media, in the social justice cognizant NBA, what – if any – will be the league’s reaction. The NBA recently took action against Meyers Leonard for his utilization of an anti-Semitic slur during a video game live stream on Twitch. Leonard, who was hit with a fine, was likewise suspended for seven days.

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Kevin Durant: Kevin Durant exits Game 5 of NBA Finals with Achilles injury

Golden State’s Kevin Durant continued Achilles injury at 9:46 of the second quarter of Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday, the extent of which will be determined when Durant undergoes an MRI exam on Tuesday.

Warriors general manager Bob Myers fought back tears and choked up as he spoke about the injury following his team’s 106-105 triumph over the Toronto Raptors.

“Prior to coming back he went through four weeks with a medical team, and it was thorough and it was experts and multiple MRIs and multiple doctors, and we felt good about the process,” Myers said.

“The initial injury was a calf injury. This is not a calf injury. I’m not a doctor, I don’t know how those are related or not, but it’s a different injury.”

Durant limped off the floor and into the locker room with assistance from Warriors director of sports medicine Rick Celebrini.

Durant was dribbling and trying to make out of here Toronto’s Serge Ibaka when he came up faltering on his right leg. He sat on the court for a brief time before getting up with a limp.

Myers and forward Andre Iguodala went to the locker room with Durant, who was making his debut in these Finals after missing the previous month with stressed right calf.

“He was cleared to play tonight; that was a collaborative decision,” Myers said. “I don’t believe there’s anybody to blame, but I understand in this world and if you have to, you can blame me. I run our basketball operations department. And to tell you something about Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant loves to play basketball, and the people that questioned whether he wanted to get back to this team were wrong.”

Durant was found in the Scotiabank Arena hallways in a walking boot and he was using crutches.

Durant was at last cleared to play by the Warriors’ medicinal staff on Monday and was headed toward a fantastic start. He made his initial two shots he endeavored – both 3-pointers – and had 11 points when he went down close to the break in the 3-point line opposite Golden State’s bench.

Before the game, Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters, “I don’t want to put too much of a burden on him. It’s been a while, we don’t know how it’s going to go, how it’s going to look, but just his mere presence makes a huge difference for us, so we’ll start him and play him in short bursts and see how he responds physically, see if his wind is OK and as the game goes, we’ll try to figure it out from there.”

In the 4th quarter, the Warriors likewise declared that Kevon Looney was accomplished for the game after re-aggravating his injury.

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NBA Playoff 2019: Warriors’ Kevin Durant ties Charles Barkley with historic, 38-point first half

There were a handful of riveting storylines heading into Game 6, however by halftime Friday night in Los Angeles, Kevin Durant had rendered the majority of the other narratives inferior.

Durant scored 38 first-half indicates give the Warriors a 72-53 lead, tying Charles Barkley for the best first half in NBA playoff history.

The Warriors’ forward went 12-for-17 from the field and 10-of-10 from the free-throw line, including a couple that tied the record in the half’s final seconds. His performance trailed just Sleepy Floyd’s 39-point second half against the Lakers in postseason lore.

Durant’s dynamic 22 minutes made secondary stories out of the Warriors’ new beginning lineup, defensive troubles and affinity to look forward toward the second-round matchup against the Houston Rockets.

Coming off a Game 5 loss at home, head coach Steve Kerr supplanted Andrew Bogut in the beginning lineup for Shaun Livingston to coordinate with the Clippers’ small-ball lineup. The lineup of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Livingston, Durant and Draymond Green, which played just nine minutes together all season, logged the initial six minutes of Game 6 and trailed by four points.

Beginning Livingston allowed Andre Iguodala and Kevon Looney to stay in the job of matching with the Clippers’ pick-and-move couple of Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell off the seat. That is the place the game turned.

Well, that, and when Durant declared his dominance.

The remainder of the Warriors joined for 34 points on 15-of-34 shooting from the floor and 1-of-7 shooting from 3-point range.

Curry and Green, who each had 12, were the main different Warriors in double-digit scoring. Green included 10 bounce back and six assists a gamesubsequent to boring the team’s defensive woes and lack of energy.

“That falls on me,” he said. “If I bring the intensity from the start, everybody else usually falls in line on that side of the ball. That’s my fault. I’ve got to be better.”

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NBA Hall of Famer shoots thought of Kevin Durant leaving Warriors for Knicks

Kevin Durant’s pending free agency has no less than one NBA Hall of Famer scratching his head.

Rick Barry, who won a NBA Championship with the Warriors in 1975, is totally perplexed by the very idea of the Golden State All-Star leaving the franchise to conceivably join the Knicks.

“He has a chance to be part of something exceptional, something so special. Why would you want to leave that when you can have fun playing the game the right way?” he told Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News on Friday. “You’re not going to have to be the guy who has to do everything to be able to win. You’re going to a place like that your chances of winning are diminished greatly.

“So you’re giving up the chance to be a champion when you were just the two-time MVP in the finals to go and be what? For what purpose? To go to New York where you’re going to be under a microscope to a point that you don’t even realize the microscope that you’re going to be under. To leave a team where you have so many of these great players, I think it would be a silly decision and the wrong decision on his part.”

Durant, 30, is planned to wind up a free agent this mid year and it is everything except an inevitable end product that he will cut ties with the Warriors in spite of winning two NBA Finals titles and will be in conflict for a third this spring.

The 10-time All-Star forward got a ton of analysis for joining the star-studded Warriors three years prior and is believed to need to demonstrate he can convey a group to a championship without taking the easy route.

Barry, 74, does not see the reason in doing that.

“Who gives a crap about (Durant’s) legacy? He’s already one of the greatest in the history of the game,” he said. “Nobody has ever been like him. He’s an anomaly. There’s never been a player who played that position like he plays. Never. So he’s something special already. What does he have to prove? If that’s the reason he’s going to do it is to prove he can do it, he might not get it done.”

The Knicks have had only two winning seasons over the most recent 18 years and just exchanged away their greatest star in Kristaps Porzingis.

However the front office remains “exceptionally idealistic” on marking Durant and the exchange has given the Knicks the infrastructure to sign him and another star player to a maximum contract.

“Selfishly, I want him to stay because I love the way he plays and I think he makes the Warriors such a great team and they have a chance to be one of the unique teams in the history of the game,” Barry said. “Why would you want to leave that? What reason?”

While the Hall of Famer has close connections to the Warriors, he additionally familiar what accompanies playing in New York.

Barry was born and raised simply outside New York City in Elizabeth, New Jersey and played for the New Jersey Nets in the ABA.

So he additionally stresses how Durant would deal with the spotlight that accompanies playing in New York.

“He’s a guy from a little town (in Maryland) and stuff,” Barry said. “He wants to go to New York? New York compared to the Bay Area where sports are like, okay. But it’s not New York. I mean, c’mon.”

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Clippers still would like to sign Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard: NBA rumors

The Knicks aren’t the only group intending to sign Kevin Durant in July.

Back in mid-December – similarly as Durant and the Warriors were going to confront Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors – ESPN’s Brian Windhorst provided details regarding the Clippers’ ground breaking strategy.

[Clippers proprietor Steve] Ballmer’s vision is to arrive Leonard or Durant – or both, insofar as they’re swinging for the fences – and afterward ride them to glory and a new arena in Inglewood that could transform the Clippers into one of the premier franchises in the league.

What’s more, as Sam Amick of The Athletic composed on Thursday, the vision hasn’t changed. Furthermore, since the Clippers delivered Tobias Harris to Philly, they are in a superior position to strike.

There’s as yet a staggering sense around the alliance that Durant is bound to sign with the Knicks, however this (exchanging Harris) was as clear an indication of any that the Clippers aren’t abandoning their terrific arrangement of landing Durant and Kawhi Leonard this summer.

This is no state mystery: It has been Durant and Leonard—and afterward every other person—for a long while now.

We adapted recently that the threat of Durant leaving for the Knicks has “never felt more real to the Warriors.”

It’s hazy if Golden State feels as undermined by the Clippers.

Yet, one thing to dependably remember as the sweepstakes unfurl is the amount Durant regards Jerry West, who currently works for the Clippers.

Keep in mind, before the two-time Finals MVP reported he was going to sign with the Warriors in 2016, he requested to talk on the phone with The Logo (who worked for Golden State at the time).

However, don’t worry about what may happen five months from now.

Simply appreciate watching Durant go up against the Suns today around evening time in a Warriors uniform.