Kyrie Irving TOOK IT PERSONAL Against James Harden

Watch the suffocating defense on this drive by Harden. At this moment we got 4 guys on him and he’s got no place to even breathe, let alone pass or shoot. As much as it was a horrible game by the beard, the Nets had a huge impact defensively, and especially Kyrie Irving believe it or not. Let me show you how he locked Harden down multiple times. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it. Early on he gets isolated on the left block, and even tho he’s about 20 kilos lighter, Kyrie stays strong here, makes a play on the ball and this is a solid defensive possession. And right here look at him playing physical and pressuring way out at the 3 point line. So on the screen, KD is gonna help but look at the effort from Irving to fight through and still be there to bother on the shot and you can see this ends up as a bad miss. Just look at the way he’s hounding him all over the floor, and again fights over the screen, as James goes inside, Kyrie makes one extra push to stay close and swipes for the ball, to get it out of his hands, another broken possession and another miss. And I love subtle things like this. We’ll stop it right here on the back screen and watch this little detail. Kyrie knows that someone will switch on to Harden but as he tries to follow him, he also grabs the jersey of Niang to make sure that he’s attached to him as well in the case of a roll. This is a veteran move and shows that he’s engaged and paying attention defensively, so as we let it roll again, you see that the Nets swarm Harden once again, and the lead is already blown out to 20 points, so you see exactly how they did it on this end. And lastly let me show you possibly my favorite situation involving Kyrie. On this play, he sniffs out the pass that’s supposed to go down here. And he ever so slightly and subtly moves in a diagonal line in that direction and as soon as Harden puts 2 hands on the ball, he jumps the passing lane, and intercepts it, the great instinct, the anticipation and reaction by Irving, as he played terrific defense throughout the entire game. For a guy that’s definitely not known for his talents on that end of the court, this was a nice surprise, but he fit in perfectly with the rest of the team who absolutely destroyed Philly with 13 steals in this game resulting with 28 fast break points that’s almost a quarter of the total points being scored that way. This game showed just how powerful the Brooklyn Nets really are. On both ends of the floor. And Philly has a lot of things to figure out for a potential playoff matchup.