Lets hope the offensive explosion from Derrick Rose last night against Cleveland was just a harbinger of things to come. On the receiving end of Rose’s open court brilliance was Cavs point guard, Kyrie Irving. But it was the man behind Uncle Drew who had the last laugh with a huge second half as the two young point guards showed whey they’ll — hopefully — continue to dazzle us for the next decade.
You already saw what Rose did in the first half and the first part of the third quarter, but here’s a reminder. The reverse, in particular, had Cleveland looking completely bamboozled:
After Rose started the third period off with seven more points, he finally sat down for a breather. That’s when Kyrie went to work. He was hitting pull-ups, drives in the lane and a three-pointer in transition.
All told, Irving poured in 11 third-quarter points on 5-of-8 from the field. He added nine more in the fourth quarter to equal Rose’s first-half total of 20 points in the second half.
Most importantly, Irving’s team won, 107-98. It’s just a preseason game, but both all-stars were giving it their all.
Rose finished with a game-high 30 points on 12-of-18 shooting and Irving had 28 on 10-for-19 from the field. The fans were awarded with a point guard duel that will hopefully be the next great point guard debate in the coming years.
These two have a history. They went against each other in Team USA tryouts this summer and helped lead USA Basketball to a gold this summer at the FIBA World Cup in Spain. There’s nothing but respect between the two and they embraced after the hard-fought preseason battle.
But when the two teams rumble in the regular season at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN Halloween night, you can be sure they’re gonna try and destroy one another.
Hot damn, we can’t wait for the season to start.
Who won the duel?
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