It’s been 293 days. That long, since Kyrie Irving stepped on the court at Barclays Center, played with his teammates on his home turf, got to salute the fans who buy his jersey and chant his name.
And so, when he walked through the bowels of the arena Sunday getting ready to play there for the first time in nearly a year, there was only one refrain that seemed appropriate. “Oh, it feels good to be home,” he told the cameras. And then, again: “Oh, it feels good to be home.”
It might have felt a lot better, however, if the Nets could have celebrated his return with a victory. After getting back to New York at 4 a.m. from their game in Miami Saturday, the Nets looked thoroughly gassed, relinquishing a double-digit lead and falling to the Hornets, 119-110, in front of 18,166 fans at Barclays Center. I was the biggest crowd there in Nets history.
It’s only their third loss in their last 10 games, but it’s an important one as the Hornets, who came into the day in ninth place, are now tied with the Nets in eighth. The Nets also lose the season series.
Down by eight with 6:57 left, the Nets scored eight straight, with the final six from Irving — including a falling, sprawling pull-up jumper with 4:05 left to tie the score at 104. Miles Bridges made one of his two free throws to put the Hornets back up but, with the crowd chanting his name, Irving hit both his free throws to give the Nets their first lead since early in the third quarter.
The Hornets scored the next five but Seth Curry’s layup drew the Nets to 110-108 with 1:33 to go; Cody Martin’s corner three helped create distance, though, and Terry Rozier’s three with 47.3 seconds to go sealed it for Charlotte.
Irving scored 16 points and matched a season-high with 11 assists, while Kevin Durant scored a team-high 27 as all five starters were in double digits. LaMelo Ball led the Hornets with 33 points and Bridges added 24.
The Nets led by as many as 14 with 5:11 left in the second quarter before the Hornets took off on a 17-5 run to draw to within 56-53 with 1:28 left until the break. Ball’s three-point play eventually got the Hornets to within 2 with 19.2 seconds to go, but Durant’s driving layup with three seconds left allowed the Nets to go into halftime up 60-56.
The lead could’ve been more, but the Nets struggled at the stripe in the first half, going 8-for-16, and they’d pay the price in the third. With the Nets clinging to a five-point lead, the Hornets hit three straight threes, two by Ball, to take a 70-66 lead with 8:59 left in the quarter. The Nets eventually went down by 10 before an 8-0 run that dribbled into the early minutes of the fourth got them to within 93-91.
The Hornets outscored the Nets 37-29 in the third, led by Ball, who hit five threes in the quarter.
It was a damper on what should have been a celebratory night – one that originally centered around the team’s prodigal son – the player who took on the city’s vaccination mandate and very unexpectedly got his way.
Irving took his home court for warmups for the first time since June 7 and was immediately greeted with chants of “Ky-rie Irv-ing,” and, when he was introduced before tipoff, the crowd at Barclays first rumbled and then roared for their star point guard. Seconds before the game, Irving pointed at the fans, crouched low to dribble between his legs and bounced the ball high into the air as the crowd cheered.
With all that, his early performance was actually a touch anticlimactic: He went 0-for-4 from the field with two assists in the first quarter, had a reverse layup rim out midway through the frame, and was subbed out for Patty Mills with 2:29 left. With fans chanting “Kyrie’s home,” he scored his first point of the game with 10:15 left in the second quarter – missing one free throw, causing the crowd to cheer him on, and making the second. He tacked on a step-back, right-wing three a minute later as the arena exploded.
It seemed like an unlikely turn of events, possible only because Mayor Eric Adams Thursday announced an exception to the private-sector mandate, allowing athletes and entertainers to enjoy the same privileges as visiting athletes, who can perform regardless of vaccination status. All of which means Irving, along with unvaccinated members of the Yankees and Mets, get to play.
