Nets-Knicks showdown proved superstars are all that matters

The Brooklyn Nets defeated their crosstown rivals the New York Knicks on Monday night at the Barclays Center, though the Knicks played more like a gnat who refused to relent than the easily-shooed-away and near-dead housefly they’ve resembled in recent years.

In the waning seconds of the game, New York’s Thibodeau Tough inbounds defense created extra opportunities that shouldn’t have been there, cinching what was once a blowout into a one-score affair.

The Knicks were hashtag gritty, relentless and determined.

They also employed neither James Harden nor Kyrie Irving. And that was really all that mattered.

The Knicks are allowed to accept whatever moral victories they’d like from Monday’s action — but that doesn’t mean you have to listen to them.

While New York may resemble an ascendent team, Brooklyn has already assembled the type of title-contending coalition that every other franchise dreams of, even if they don’t want to admit it publicly.

The Knicks are some middle-aged fan’s platonic ideal of a basketball team, always making the extra pass, agitating, and playing their way towards the middle of the conference. The Nets are set up for greatness, and your level of enjoyment while experiencing them depends on what type of fan you are.

Do you want the team you root for to have some great backstory, a tale of woe-turned-gumption? Feel free to gravitate to the Knicks. Do you want to watch three of the game’s great individuals performing night in and night out, all the way through June? Brooklyn proved again on Monday they can provide that.

In wire-to-wire close games, blowouts, and roller coaster tenuous squeakers, superstardom makes the difference, and always has. Both Harden and Irving were transcendent in this game, often making slack-jawed plays look routine.

Both the Knicks and Nets have fought through decades of underperformance, turmoil, and feeling “outsmarted” by the league’s elites.

Only one of the teams has acquired one of the NBA’s top 20 superstars in its pursuit of a championship, and that team has three of them.

Monday’s game was just another example of why everything else is just background noise.

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