The Brooklyn Nets were utterly dominant on Tuesday evening, zooming to a 15-point lead after 12 minutes and ultimately throttling the Golden State Warriors by a 125-99 margin in the NBA’s regular season opener. As one may expect, Kevin Durant was a big piece of the puzzle for the Nets, scoring 22 points in only 25 minutes, and he looks to be at least close to his old self after missing the 2019-20 season with an Achilles injury.
After the encouraging performance from both Durant and the Nets, he joined TNT’s Inside The NBA crew for an interview before the nightcap between the Lakers and the Nets. While that wasn’t out of the ordinary in the slightest, Durant wasn’t exactly effervescent during the discussion.
KD joined the @NBAonTNT crew after his Nets debut
It’s been 561 days since his last NBA game pic.twitter.com/uc03h2LNV1
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 23, 2020
Durant didn’t cause too much of an uproar with his short, pointed answers but, when the interview concluded, the Inside The NBA panel couldn’t help but acknowledge what transpired by having a bit of fun with how the discussion went.
Inside The NBA roasting KD immediately after interviewing him…Savage LOL pic.twitter.com/JFDnuKa38P
— Gifdsports (@gifdsports) December 23, 2020
Kenny Smith immediately (and sarcastically) pointed out that it was “loud in that arena” and Shaq followed that up with a comment about there being “so much energy” in the building. To be fair, Smith did attempt to let Durant off the hook by pointing out the difficulty of doing such an interview but, on cue, Shaq and Charles Barkley traded barbs with exceptionally short answers to pay tribute to what just happened.
With the gap between games on opening night, something like this was certainly welcome from an entertainment standpoint, and the best studio show in the business didn’t disappoint. It will be interesting to see how soon Durant returns to the air on TNT in a similar format, though, and that could be appointment viewing.
