NBA scoring machine Kevin Durant was generally pleased with the Brooklyn Nets effort in a tough 2-point loss to Luka Doncic and the Mavericks. Down 10 points late in the game the Nets surged to near victory, which didn’t surprise Durant, who said “we had good momentum the whole game…it was a matter of time before we got back in it.”
What Durant wasn’t happy about was his missed free throw late in the game — a unlikely miss that changed the game’s outcome, he believed. Durant had made 62 free throws in a row before coming up short, with his second shot going in and out.
Nobody’s perfect (though 62 in a row…), but Durant wasn’t letting himself off the hook. “I gotta make that,” Durant lamented in the postgame presser. “I gotta make that. That’s the game. We’d probably still be playing right now.”
“F*&k, man,” Durant said, the ferocious competitor visibly distraught. “I felt like I went through my whole routine. Damn, I should have shot it a little stronger. It sucks. You get a free shot at the rim. I tell guys all the time, ‘they’re free’.”
The Nets Royce O’Neal made a strong effort to corral the rebound after Durant’s miss, but couldn’t convert. Durant still wouldn’t let it go, not pass the buck. “None of that matters,” he said of the post-miss rebound. “I just gotta make the free throws.”
But back on the plus side, Durant returned to the fact that the Nets played, like the Mavs, good defense. He also admitted he knows the reason the Mavs are throwing three or four guys at him on defense. “It just shows how great I am,” Durant said with a smile.
