NEW YORK — In his last meaningful moment of a quickly fading season, Kyrie Irving shimmied and shifted, unleashed a series of nifty dribbles, burst into the lane, and … tossed up an errant, well-contested floater against a much taller defender.
And there was the Nets’ season in one sobering snapshot: all razzle-dazzle and bravado, with absolutely nothing to show for it—just confusion and humiliation and a vague sense of regret.
It all mercifully ended Monday night in Brooklyn, with a 116-112 loss to the Celtics, the final blow in a stunning first-round series sweep—and the coda to a uniquely strange, disjointed and joyless season.