NEW YORK (AP) — Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are gone, and so is the Nets’ dominance of New York’s basketball rivalry.

Jalen Brunson scored 40 points, Josh Hart added a season-high 27 in his second game with his new team and the Knicks snapped a nine-game losing streak against Brooklyn with a 124-106 victory Monday night.

Julius Randle had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Knicks, who beat the Nets for the first time in three years. Brooklyn never lost to the Knicks when Durant or Irving played.

“You’ve got to give them credit. They’ve been really good the past couple of years and they were great tonight,” Brunson said, “but I think we just had the upper hand in the second half and we kind of just turned it up a little bit and came away with a win.”

The seventh-place Knicks pulled within two games of the Nets for fifth place in the Eastern Conference. The top six teams are guaranteed playoff spots.

Spencer Dinwiddie scored 28 points for the Nets, who showed again how much of a struggle scoring could be after trading their two All-Stars last week. Cam Johnson had 14, but Mikal Bridges, who came with him from Phoenix in the Durant trade, was 2 of 8 for seven points.

“That was the overall challenge, just to be able to put the ball in the basket,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said. “And it’s something we’re going to work on and stress as a group.”

The Knicks beat the Nets twice in the 2019-20 season, which Durant missed while recovering from Achilles tendon surgery. Irving was injured for one Knicks victory, then left Madison Square Garden after learning of Kobe Bryant’s death before the most recent one on Jan. 26, 2020.

Brunson scored 17 in the decisive third quarter on his way to his third 40-point game of the season after never having one in the regular season during his first four years with Dallas.

“Obviously seeing him play in college and he was amazing and I knew he would have a long career in the NBA, but I didn’t think it was going to be how he’s playing now,” said Hart, Brunson’s teammate at Villanova. “And he’s someone who should be an All-Star and he’s playing at an All-Star level.”

Brunson turned the game in the Knicks’ favor for good after it was tied at 80 late in the third quarter. Brunson had a basket and 3-pointer that started a 13-3 finish to the period for the Knicks, with his 3 making it 93-83.

Hart, acquired from Portland last week, converted a three-point play to push the lead to 12 with 7:05 remaining and the Knicks were never in jeopardy again.

Bridges’ consecutive games streak, the longest current one in the NBA, reached 367 even though he missed the Nets’ game against Chicago last Thursday. Bridges wasn’t available to play after his trade from Phoenix in the blockbuster for Durant wasn’t approved in time, and the league determined he shouldn’t be penalized for not playing in a game for which he wasn’t eligible. Bridges hasn’t missed a game in the NBA or college.

Even before Kyrie Irving was officially traded to Dallas, teams kept their eyes on Kevin Durant. Once the first domino fell, everyone thought he was on his way out, but sources I spoke to expected a summer deal, there were too many moving parts to get it done in a few days.

Nope, Durant was traded to Phoenix in a blockbuster that changes the title picture. Now Mark Stein breaks down how this all went down in his latest newsletter.

Phoenix was always rumored to be Durant’s preferred destination, and with new owner Mat Ishbia stepping in and willing to pay up — not only in terms of picks and players out the door, but this trade added $45 million in payroll and luxury tax payments to the bottom line — the deal got done. Stein reports the Suns called the Nets about Kyrie Irving as well hoping to bring the duo West together, but the deal never happened.

Just landing Durant has turned the Suns into a Western Conference contender on paper (it will be after the All-Star break before we see them all together and decide just how good they are this season).

While there was plenty of friction between Irving and the Nets’ front office/ownership, the relationship with Durant was much more smooth and professional. It wasn’t enough to get him to stay in Brooklyn, but there were not the hard feelings that came with Irving. Both sides knew it was time for the Durant era in Brooklyn to end.

Now Durant looks to add to his legacy in Phoenix, and the Nets are rebuilding, but with a nice collection of role players and picks to start with.

The participants in the NBA’s Saturday night showcase events — the 3-Point Contest, the Dunk Contest — are officially getting announced late this season as the NBA has not found it as easy to recruit players to Salt Lake City in February as they might have hoped.

That said, Shams Charania of The Athletic leaked the names in the 3-point Contest, and as usual it is stacked:

• Jayson Tatum (Celticis) • Damian Lillard (Trail Blazers) • Lauri Markkanen (Jazz) • Kevin Huerter (Kings) • Tyler Herro (Heat) • Tyrese Haliburton (Pacers) • Buddy Hield (Pacers) • Anfernee Simons (Trail Blazers)

The 3-Point Contest has become maybe the biggest draw of All-Star Saturday night partly because the stars still come out to do it (unlike the Dunk Contest). We already knew Lillard would take part, and he is joined by elite shooters and other top 10 players in the league. Guys show up for this.

Based on 3-point percentage from this season, Hield and Markkanen should be the favorites, although Huerter and Haliburton are close. However, with a deep field this could go a lot of ways — does Lillard’s clutch gene kick in for this Contest? It will be worth watching.

Three Things To Know is NBC’s five-days-a-week wrap-up of the night before in the NBA. Check out NBCSports.com every weekday morning to catch up on what you missed the night before plus the rumors, drama, and dunks that make the NBA must-watch.

“Great players figure it out.” That’s the mantra around the league whenever two elite players whose games wouldn’t seem to mesh naturally join forces. Chris Paul and James Harden figured it out in Houston, for example.

Luka Dončić and Kyrie will figure it out. But there is work to do to get there, and it is evident in their first couple of games together. The Mavs are 0-2 in those games after falling to the Timberwolves on Monday, 124-121.

Right now, the offense is Dončić and Irving playing next to each other — for too much of the first three quarters Monday night Irving was basically a decoy in the corner. Or, if Irving was running the offense Dončić was standing still (or, a couple of times, ignoring the play altogether to argue with the referee). Irving took over in the fourth quarter Monday and scored 26 in the final frame, it was just not enough to make up the ground (Dallas entered the fourth down 18). Dončić wasn’t exactly helpful off the ball during this run, but he did stay out of the way and let the guy with the hot hand have the rock.

It’s just two games. Irving and Dončić will figure it out this season, but both of them are going to have to make sacrifices they are not right now. The Mavs have shooting around their star duo and the offense will click eventually. Remember it took LeBron James and Dwyane Wade a season and a half to figure things out in Miami, hopefully it doesn’t take that long in Dallas.

That still leaves two big questions.

The first is defense. Minnesota had a 131 offensive rating in the win Monday, in the game before that Sacramento had a 126 (for comparison, Denver has the best offense in the NBA this season at 118.2). Minnesota scored 40 points in the paint in the first half (65 total points in the first 24 minutes). Again, we need to give Jason Kidd a little time, but this was a bottom-10 defense before the trade and they sent away their best on-ball defender in Dorian Finney-Smith. The Mavericks must get the offense clicking because they will win games by outscoring teams.

The other big question: Will Irving stick around after the season? He sounds open to it but was understandably non-committal at this point.

“What the future holds is really only going to be dictated on what I do right now, and how I prepare for those next steps, and that’s being the best teammate that I can in that locker room and a great leader out here, I think within the Dallas community….” Irving said, via the Associated Press. “So we’re just putting that to bed and just focus on what we have ahead as a team.”

What they have as a team has a lot of potential, but there is work to do.

Stephen Curry spoke with reporters about the leg injury that has him out through the All-Star break and beyond. He hoped to return quickly after the All-Star break ends in a couple of weeks.

“At first it felt like it was a normal contusion, just a real serious one, that’s why I went to the bench and thought I could kind of just shake it off, then I got up from the bench and felt something different and was like `Nah, that’s not right,”‘ Curry said, via the Associated Press “I knew it was something more than just a normal contusion because I couldn’t put any weight on it and was hobbling around. Thankfully there weren’t any broken bones or anything.”

The Warriors are 2-2 so far in this stretch without Curry, including a win over the Wizards on Monday night.

That puts them at 29-28 on the season, sitting ninth in the West. Everyone is waiting for the Warriors to flip the switch and look like the championship team of a season ago, but if they do, it will come with Curry back in the lineup. So everyone waits.

The Nets aren’t going to fall out of the postseason with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving gone, they have too big a cushion (seven games) and the players they got back in those trades are quality NBA role players who can help them win a few games. The question is how many teams can pass the No.5 seed Nets, secure a slot in the top six, and avoid the play-in.

The Knicks are one of those teams, so their win over the Nets Monday matters. Jalen Brunson dropped 40 points, while Josh Hart added a season-high 27 in his second game with his new team. It led to a 124-106 Knicks victory Monday night.

Julius Randle added 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Knicks, who beat the Nets for the first time in three years.

The seventh-place Knicks are now within two games of the Nets for fifth place in the Eastern Conference.

With a core of Kyrie Irving and Luka Dončić, the Dallas Mavericks are looking to round out their roster with defenders and shooters who can complement their stars, especially with Dorian Finney-Smith traded in the deal to land Irving.

Enter veteran guard Justin Holiday, who is about to sign a contract with the Mavericks after he finalizes a contract buyout with the Rockets, reports Brian Windhorst of ESPN. Holiday was traded from the Hawks to the Rockets at the deadline as part of a cost-saving move by Atlanta.

Holiday has played a limited role for the Hawks this season, appearing in 28 games, averaging 4.5 points in 14.7 minutes per game.

There had been some buzz the Rockets wanted to keep him around, but the feeling apparently was not mutual. There also were reports Holiday was a top target of the Mavericks.