Kyrie Irving scores 31 to lead Nets past Knicks as crosstown bullying continues

Kyrie Irving’s tenure in Brooklyn has been a series of controversies and aggravations. But he can claim one very positive distinction, which is especially important to Nets fans:

Utter domination of the New York Knicks.

Irving beat the Knicks again Saturday in Barclays Center, dropping 21 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter — including a pair of dagger 3s — sending swaths of unhappy fans in orange and blue attire to the exits.

[ Ben Simmons out against Knicks with left knee soreness ]

“I love beating the Knicks and playing against them,” Irving said.

The Knicks (27-24) dropped their ninth straight to the crosstown rivals, although ‘rivalry’ doesn’t really apply to this matchup. It’s more of a bullying situation at this point. Dating back to his career with the Cavs, Irving has won 16 of his last 18 matchups against the Knicks.

He was unguardable Saturday down the stretch, picking up the slack with Kevin Durant out.

“We were running defenders at him,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “It’s who he is. He’s not going to stop moving, either.”

The Knicks were forced to play catch-up after an uninspiring start, with Thibodeau acknowledging that Ben Simmons being unavailable (knee soreness) threw the game plan off kilter. In other words, the Nets replaced a non-shooter (Simmons) with a shooter (Seth Curry). Then they buried a ridiculous 55% of their 40 3-point attempts.

“I thought offensively we were fine but we got in a hole early and we didn’t cover the line as well as we could have or should have,” Thibodeau said. “I don’t know if we weren’t quite ready. There were a lot of moving parts because we didn’t know who was in or out.

“So we knew the personnel would change and we would change who was on the floor with different groupings. And the way Curry has been playing and, of course, Irving puts so much pressure on you we thought the 3 would be something we had to be aware of and we got hurt by it.”

The Barclays Center crowd included the elites of their fields, Mariano Rivera and Mike Krzyzewski. It didn’t include Knicks owner James Dolan, who revealed he’s never been to the arena across the Manhattan Bridge because he wouldn’t feel comfortable.

His team isn’t very comfortable, either. The Knicks have just one victory in Brooklyn in five years.

“We weren’t good,” said Julius Randle. “Closing out, sense of urgency, none of that. We have to be better.”

For the Knicks, Brunson scored 26 and Barrett added 24. But the problem was defense. Coming off consecutive victories against Eastern Conference elites Boston and Cleveland, the Knicks laid a dud in their first game on ABC.

And Irving was their biggest problem.

[ Tom Thibodeau not fazed by James Dolan’s playoff order: ‘I never feel pressure’ ]

”I don’t really know what you’re supposed to do,” Barrett said. “I mean, Quentin [Grimes] was playing great defense. It’s Kyrie Irving, man. He’s gonna make those shots. We had to try to get the ball out of his hands as much as we can, but it wasn’t like he was getting easy layups or anything. He really made some tough shots. So, tip your hat off to him.”