With a bucket needed to win the game, Kyrie Irving took care of the business without fear.
With less than four seconds remaining in regulation, Irving boldly took possession from the inbound pass of Ben Simmons. The All-Star guard went on to dribble straight as if he will go for a driving layup, but he pressed off his brakes near the top of the key to shaking Fred VanVleet away.
Irving had that needed space for a game-winning shot, which he greatly capitalized to give the Brooklyn Nets a 119-116 victory over the Toronto Raptors within the stunned Scotiabank Arena.
The huge play was originally given to Kevin Durant, but he went on to convince coach Jacque Vaughn to hand it off to Irving, who made two crucial field goal attempts with less than two minutes left as crunch time was ticking.
Irving closed out the Friday thriller with team-high 32 markers in 13-for-22 shots made.
“He was already cooking, so I didn’t want to get in his way,” Durant said, per ESPN’s Nick Friedell. “We kept finding him late in the game. He made some big shots, and I was just like, ‘Jacque, I think Ky should take this one.'”
Durant also noted that Irving was in a better position to take over with VanVleet assigned against him.
“I’m not saying he’s a bad defender, but they’re the same size,” Durant clarified. “He didn’t have a 6-9 [Scottie] Barnes or a 6-5 guy on him that had size, so I felt he could get whatever he want there, and I also felt like they wasn’t going to run and double him either at the top of the key because he obviously could just beat that. So they let him play one-on-one and it was a special, special shot.”
For the cold-blooded Irving, the winning moment can only be attributed to the Nets’ continuing foundation of building that collective trust, as the star guard officially made his first buzzer-beating shot to win the ball game.
“It just comes with the trust that we’re building here,” Irving said. “Jacque had a play call that we were about to go execute, and me and K had some dialogue and we decided to run the play for me. A good matchup versus Fred. We just got the better of him that one time.
“Who would have thought I would have come into Toronto and hit my first game-winning buzzer-beater of my career? So pray that there’s more in the future, but I’m glad that we got this win.”
The Nets now comfortably sit on the East’s fourth slate following the win, extending their winning mark to five with an 18-12 card as they head to Detroit for a Sunday matchup with the Pistons.
