Nets hold off Cavaliers in play-in, advance to face Celtics in first round of NBA playoffs

They did it again.

Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant put the Nets on their backs and carried them to another big-time win.

The Nets are headed to the playoffs as the No. 7 seed after Irving and Durant put up big-time points and logged big-time minutes to push their team to a 115-108 victory over Cleveland in a play-in game at Barclays Center on Tuesday night.

The victory means the Nets will open the postseason in Boston Sunday against the No. 2 Celtics.

Cleveland gets one more shot to make the playoffs as they will meet the winner of Wednesday’s 9-10 play-in game on Friday with the No. 8 seed going to the winner.

Irving was unstoppable for most of the game as he hit his first 12 shots before a three-pointer rimmed out early in the fourth quarter. He finished with 34 points on 12-for-15 shooting. He also made 12 assists.

Durant added 25 points and 11 assists. He scored nine points in the fourth quarter when the Nets were fighting off a Cleveland comeback.

Both players played more than 41 minutes in what the Nets said they were treating as a must-win game. “They are as advertised,” Nets coach Steve Nash said. “They are superstars. That’s what top players do.”

Darius Garland’s 34 points and five assists were not enough to push Cleveland over the top though it did cut what had been a 20-point deficit after one quarter to just five points in the fourth.

The game put a crazy regular season that included injuries, a COVID-19 vaccination drama, a trade demand drama and an 11-game losing streak in the rearview mirror. The Nets head to Boston with a five-game winning streak. “We stayed together and we were resilient,” Irving said. “It feels good but the job isn’t finished. We wanted to get this one tonight to start ourselves on our journey in the playoffs. I think we’ve answered a few questions, but we know where we want to be in the end. Our job isn’t finished.”

No, it’s not, and the Nets know they will have their hands full in Boston, playing a team that Irving left three years ago for the Nets.

The Celtics (51-31) were one of the hottest teams in the league in the final month of the season, winning 10 of 13 games. They were 3-1 against the Nets, though that is a bit misleading because the first two of those losses came when both Irving and Durant were missing from the lineup. In the third, a 126-120 Nets loss in Boston on March 6, Jayson Tatum exploded for 54 points.

If there was any doubt that the Nets were primed to put this game behind them quickly, it was answered in the first quarter when the Nets jumped out to a 40-20 lead.

The Nets shot 70.8% in the first quarter with Durant going 3-for-3 and Irving 5-for-5. The two finished the first half with a combined 13-for-14 shooting from the floor.

“It feels like a playoff game,” Durant said before the game. “Each game is just as important. Game 1 through 7 are important. So it’s like a playoff game, and I know our fans are going to approach it as such.”

The Cavaliers, who lost a tight game to the Nets last week, looked overwhelmed early in the game. “We want to win tonight. Period,” Nash said before the game. “So, whatever it takes to get this game result that we need.”

What it has taken to get the Nets to this point are some big-time minutes from both Durant and Irving. A big reason the Nets wanted to win Tuesday night and avoid another play-in game on Friday is that they will now get four days off before taking the court in Boston.

“You hope that you don’t have to play people 1000 minutes,” Nash said of his plan going into Tuesday night’s game. “I think if there’s any doubt you can see by our track record recently we’ve played them a lot of minutes.”

Something tells us that may continue to be the plan in the rest of the playoffs.

By Barbara Barker

barbara.barker@newsday.commeanbarb

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.