NFL Legend Blames “Inefficient” Kevin Durant For Nets’ Loss vs Jayson Tatum’s Celtics

The Boston Celtics pulled off a sensational victory against Brooklyn Nets by the barest of margins. Until the last dying second, the Nets were in the lead. Although the Boston Celtics pretty much had control over the game, the Nets had made a surging sequence of points in the last quarter.

Kyrie scored massive 39 points. The Nets led the last quarter 29-17 making a comeback into the game before Jayson Tatum scored a spinning layup to make the overall score 115-114. The crowd erupted into joy as the Boston players celebrated their thrilling win.

The 23-year-old Celtics star had the moment of his season with the buzzer-beater layup. The TD Garden crowd was on top of their voices in celebration. Despite Kyrie’s convincing performance, Tatum snatched the victory. It was an amazing game with everyone who was supposed to play well, did play well. However, it will be fair to say that Kevin Durant was not at his best. He scored 9 out of the 24 shots he took and in total had 23 points.

DIVE DEEPER: LeBron James heaps praise on Kyrie Irving.

Is Kevin Durant to be blamed for the Nets’ narrow loss?

The game would have looked different had KD been in full flow. He has averaged 29.9 points per game this season. And he was clearly off the mark in the first game of the seven-game series in the first round of the playoffs. Most of the credit has to go to the Boston Celtics defense for KD’s inefficiency on the night, even though he missed a few of the easy chances that he had. Shannon Sharpe explained how KD being out of form may have been the main reason for the Nets loss.

“I’m going to give him 75 percent. Because he had more shots than points, he had six turnovers. He was very very inefficient. Kyrie Irving had it going,” Shannon said about KD’s performance when asked what percentage of the blame must go to KD.

He continued, “Kevin Durant is an elite level scorer. He’s an elite level player. But yesterday he was not. And like I said if he is a C minus yesterday, they win this ball game Skip. Kevin Durant did not play the type of ball game. I think that shows in the videos, he was inefficient.”

Apr 17, 2022; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant (7) reacts after the game against the Boston Celtics in the second half during game one of the first round for the 2022 NBA playoffs at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

Shannon clearly was not happy with the performance Kevin Durant displayed. He ranked or graded it effectively even lower than ‘C minus’. For the Nets to come back in this series and potentially win it, both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant need to turn up.

WATCH THIS STORY: Welcome to the NBA moments featuring KD and others.

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