New York, New York – What we learned from a rare NBA doubleheader

Unfortunately for the Nets, though, they did so wearing suit jackets and slacks.

But while Durant, Irving and Caris LeVert continue to sit out with injuries, Brooklyn earned a 112-107 victory over Boston thanks to standout showings from Spencer Dinwiddie and Jarrett Allen — the kind that allow the Nets to hope they can continue their recent hot streak once they begin to get their big names back on the court.

The Nets are now 6-2 without Irving after Friday’s win — a stretch during which Dinwiddie has taken on the challenge of being the team’s lead playmaker with aplomb.

“Just continuing to progress every year,” said Dinwiddie, who had 32 points and 11 assists Friday and is averaging 24.5 points and 7.8 assists since Irving left the lineup. “I was just trying to strike a balance tonight between passing and scoring and figure out my role as it continues to shift around when we get healthy and aren’t injured.”

Allen, though, will not be playing next to DeAndre Jordan, the man he’s alternated time with this season — which is why his play during this streak, in which he’s averaged 15.6 points and 12.6 rebounds while shooting 72.5% from the floor, has the Nets so excited about what lies ahead.

“[Nets coach] Kenny [Atkinson] challenged him in film one game to not be as up and down, but to just be up, and to play at that level,” forward Garrett Temple told ESPN. “‘We see that you can and we need you to be at that level to be successful,’ and he’s taken that challenge head on and he’s been amazing.

“I think he understands what he can do, and he’s stepped into that role. ‘I can be this dominant inside and my team needs me to be dominant so I’m going to be dominant like that.'”

The Nets still have plenty to sort out. The offense will inevitably look different whenever Irving comes back — which, after he returned to on-court work Friday, appears to be getting closer. LeVert’s return will come a couple weeks after that. But, as they wait for those guys to return, the Nets have to feel good about what they are seeing in their absence.

Celtics coach Brad Stevens had had enough. Enes Kanter checked into the game for Theis 33 seconds into the third quarter, and Theis remained anchored to the bench for the remainder of the game.

“He was available,” Stevens said when asked about Theis after the game.

“We’ve talked about it all year, we’re going to have a rotating center spot. Now that Enes is getting healthier, I thought that Enes was really good in the first half, and so we went with Enes early.”

Later, in reference to a question about Allen, Stevens made his true feelings known.

“I think we started three of the four halves we played in the last three days with a Jarrett Allen dunk,” Stevens said, “which is not a good way to start from the Celtics’ [point] of view.”

Theis has been a significant part of why Boston has gotten off to such a strong start, but his benching Friday was just the latest example of the game of musical chairs Stevens has been playing with his supporting cast all season, in an effort to find usable rotation pieces.

So far, it has been a mostly barren pursuit.

Of the players behind the team’s perimeter stalwarts — Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Gordon Hayward and Marcus Smart — the one option who has been serviceable is Brad Wanamaker, who has capably handled the team’s backup point guard minutes. But Grant Williams and Carsen Edwards — two of the team’s three rookies drafted among the top 33 picks in June — have struggled mightily. The third, Romeo Langford, made a 14-second cameo Oct. 30 and hasn’t been seen in a game since. Semi Ojeleye, a third-year forward, remains an at-best inconsistent spot-up shooter on the perimeter.

The struggles by the rookies have stood out. After going 0-for-2 against the Nets, Williams is now just 12-for-49 (24.5%) from the field — including 0-for-21 from 3-point range. There might not be a person better suited to dealing with such a slump, however, than Williams, who is equally both a sunny personality and a very confident one. But that can do only so much.

“Sometimes, you just miss them,” he said, referring to his oh-fer streak from 3-point range. “But eventually they’ll start falling, and I feel like they’ll fall when the team needs them, especially. So I’ve got the utmost confidence in it to keep shooting them and let it fly.”

Edwards also isn’t shy. He also has struggled mightily. He is now 23-for-73 (31.5%) on the season, and 14-for-43 from 3-point range. More than half of his total made baskets this season came in just two games, against the porous defenses of Washington and Cleveland. Take out those two games and Edwards is shooting 20% (11-for-55) overall and 20.6% (7-for-34) from 3.

“It’s a tough adjustment,” Edwards said Friday. “I’m still trying to learn. At the end of the day, I’m just learning and trying to do the best I can.”

The same can be said for all of Boston’s young players. And, at 13-5, the Celtics are exceeding expectations. But for a team that has aspirations of a deep playoff run, these final rotation spots all bear watching.

During a timeout in the fourth quarter at Madison Square Garden, the in-arena camera showed singer Mary J. Blige sitting on celebrity row as her song “Family Affair” blared through the arena’s speakers.

The Knicks’ season, however, hasn’t exactly been percolating.

The Knicks built up a 16-point first half lead Friday, only to watch it immediately evaporate after halftime. The far more talented Sixers, who looked completely unmotivated in the first half, decided it was time to wake up and start playing, and went on to win 101-95.

Losing a big lead to the 76ers for the second time in two weeks isn’t nearly as disconcerting as the haphazard way the Knicks are progressing through this season.

“The flow of the game,” Knicks coach David Fizdale said afterward when asked why Knox didn’t play.

“But by no means is Kevin buried. He’s going to have to fight his way out of it. I got a lot of confidence that he will.”

There isn’t a ton of evidence thus far in his career that Knox is going to be a good NBA player. He is shooting 38% from the field this season (though, to be fair, he’s also shooting that from 3-point range, where it is a respectable mark). But whether there is evidence or not should be irrelevant for a Knicks team that wasn’t expected to be competitive this season by anyone outside the organization.

The team’s goal should have been to find out what it has in Knox, Mitchell Robinson, RJ Barrett and Frank Ntilikina. Nothing should get in the way of that — especially after the dreadful start should have eliminated from the equation the faint notion that this team would be good.

But, in Fizdale’s defense, this is the position the team put him. After a loss to the Cavaliers earlier this month, team executives Steve Mills and Scott Perry — at the behest of owner James Dolan — held an impromptu news conference and declared, “We think the team is not performing to the level that we anticipated or we expected to perform at, and that’s something that we think we collectively have to do a better job of delivering the product on the floor that we said we would do at the start of this season.”

There is still plenty of time for the Knicks to shift their priorities to the things that should matter: fully focusing on the development of those young players. Until they do, however, an ugly season will only continue to get uglier.

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Joel Embiid racks up a game-high 27 points and 17 rebounds while Ben Simmons adds 15 points and eight assists as the 76ers beat the Knicks 101-95.

There is one theme that has been consistently obvious about Philadelphia’s start to its season, and it was on display again Friday, even in a halfhearted victory over an overmatched Knicks team. It’s been something Sixers coach Brett Brown has said repeatedly, including before Friday’s game: The offense has to catch up with the defense.

The numbers bear that out. The Sixers now have the NBA’s third-best defensive efficiency, and are within a half-point of having the top-ranked unit. Offensively, however, Philadelphia ranks just 18th in the league.

“We just really have to find our flow,” forward Tobias Harris said. “We have to move our bodies a little more and just execute.