The Nets left a gift for basketball Twitter on the final night of the regular season, a spectacular transition play into a dunk for Kevin Durant that YES Network’s Ian Eagle described as “one of the highlights of the year.”
In the final seconds of the first half, Blake Griffin plucked a deflected loose ball out of the air and in one motion flipped a behind-the-back pass out toward halfcourt from the Cleveland end. Kyrie Irving directed a touch pass to Mike James, who flipped the ball off the backboard for a trailing Durant to throw down a highlight dunk that brought an explosion from the Barclays Center crowd and the Nets bench, putting a bow on a first half in which the Nets scored 67 points and shot 64.3 percent.
Here’s how they all saw the play go down.
KEVIN DURANT: “You can see that play forming. It felt like it was laid up on a platter for us. We got a good stop, good deflection, Blake was able to get it out quick, Ky got it out quick. And then boom. So it happened so fast, I don't think we forced anything. And those are usually the best plays when it just organically happens. So it was one of those ones. I'm excited I was part of it.”
BLAKE GRIFFIN: “Listen, I don’t like to pat myself on the back, but I did get that thing started. I was yelling at everybody to take off. I passed it to Kyrie, and then I was yelling at Kyrie to pass it to Mike and I told Mike to throw it off the backboard. Kevin just dunked it. I didn’t tell him anything. I don’t want to take credit for it. Those guys did it. I was just kind of orchestrating from behind.”
MIKE JAMES: “I think they threw like a bad pass or something like that. I kind of tipped it, Blake did some weird threw it behind the back, and Kyrie threw it to me, and I kind of seen Kev trailing, and my instinct was to throw it off the glass but I think I was a little bit nervous. If it would have been bad, I think my Nets career would have been over, but it worked out for me, but you know, Kev caught it, and it worked.”
KEVIN DURANT: “Mike is such a smart player. I think he saw me before he even caught the ball. And I gave him a quick look and I saw him glance back at me. And that's all you really need. I mean, me and Mike have been hanging around each other every day since he got here, so it felt like he already knew what I was thinking and vice versa. So it worked out. Like I said, I'm glad I was a part of such a nice, special play like that. And everybody felt like they touched that, put their hands on the ball in their possession, and I'm glad we gave our fans a show.”
MIKE JAMES: “I just took a quick look, seen him running and hoped he didn’t stop. So it wasn’t like anything super planned. It was kind of just a feeling, so yeah, it worked. Thankfully.”
BLAKE GRIFFIN: “It was a good play. I tried to just get it out of my hands as fast as possible and those guys did the rest. But it was fun to watch. It was crazy to see it all come together.”
STEVE NASH: “My vantage was, ‘We think we’re cute now.’ That’s about all I got for you.”