Bench takes care of matters against Wizards as Nets watch Kevin Durant’s minutes

There are two trains of thought to follow after the Nets’ 112-100 victory over the Washington Wizards on Monday night — Brooklyn’s fourth straight win, eighth in its last nine and 15th victory in the 22 games Jacque Vaughn has coached since taking over for Steve Nash seven games into the season.

The first: The Nets reserves might be better than they’ve been given credit.

The Nets were able to keep minutes relatively low for Kevin Durant while sitting Royce O’Neale (personal reasons) a second consecutive game. It’s a plus for the players who ranked Nos. 1 and 2 respectively in total minutes before Vaughn rested both against the Indiana Pacers on Saturday.

You can credit the reserves for both victories — for Saturday’s unlikely triumph over a surging Pacers team in a game Vaughn rested almost every rotation player; and for supporting Kyrie Irving, Durant and Ben Simmons in staggered minutes against the Wizards on Monday.

Durant, Irving and Simmons — yes, Simmons — were each electric.

After bringing the Capital One Arena down with a hesitation, crossover, pull-up jumper combination that sent Wizards C Daniel Gafford into a split his first game back in D.C. earlier this season, Durant buried his hometown team with a flurries of scoring in his second homecoming Monday night. He finished with 30 points and only six missed baskets, an 11-of-17 shooting night that also included nine rebounds and six assists.

Irving ran up 24 points, six rebounds and five assists, and Simmons added 10 points, eight rebounds and five assists of his own.

The pair combined for two highlight plays: a close-range, behind-the-back dime from Irving to a cutting Simmons for a layup under the rim; and a one-handed alley-oop Irving initially faked as a layup before floating a short lob to Simmons for the two-handed dunk.

Durant, Irving and Simmons wowed the Wizards’ crowd all night. But key minutes from the reserves helped secure the victory.

TJ Warren, for example, came off the bench to score 12 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field. Yuta Watanabe missed five of his six shot attempts but found himself on the floor as part of Brooklyn’s closing lineup. Cam Thomas played key minutes to relieve Irving in mid-game stretches, and Seth Curry played 22 minutes, though he only managed one made shot on seven tries.

Not to mention Patty Mills, whose veteran leadership and playoff experience may be vital for a deep postseason run.

“What I love seeing is you look at one of our huddles where we use the iPad to see what happened on the play before, and you see the group talking to each other and trying to make adjustments at the same time,” said Vaughn. “We didn’t have that previously, and so that communication whether it was a clip guys wanted to see at halftime that we talked through, so I think that’s where the trust is growing: to be able to communicate, to be able to ask questions, little psychological safety where you can ask and not be reprimanded and we try to figure this thing out together.”

And then there’s the second train of thought: The Nets have looked like an elite team — against middle of the pack competition.

The Nets have not beaten a legitimate championship contender this season. They have lost to the New Orleans Pelicans, Milwaukee Bucks, Dallas Mavericks, Philadelphia 76ers and most recently, the Boston Celtics.

Their wins have come against teams that aren’t projected to sniff the second round of the playoffs, let alone the first, with some teams projected to miss the Play-In Tournament.

“Favorable schedule being at home for seven of those [eight wins] and being able to wake up in our own beds and have our own routine at home definitely matters,” said Durant. “We also faced a couple teams that were missing a couple guys, as well. For the most part, I like the brand of basketball we played on both ends of the floor. Regardless of who’s out there on the court, we still played our system and we did the things that we wanted to do on both ends.

“So being at home counts, having everybody back healthy counts, so we just want to keep plugging away.”

The chemistry and continuity is developing. That much is undeniable. The Nets, however, aren’t aiming to be a regular season team. They want to be the last team standing, which will inevitably require securing victories against other high-level playoff teams.

Handling business against non-playoff opponents is a must, and it’s an area the Nets have fallen short in past seasons.

Their next real challenge will be protecting home court against Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors at Barclays Center on Dec. 21.

They will have two more opportunities to add to the win column before then, with the Raptors and Pistons next up on the docket.

KYRIE IRVING ‘GRATEFUL’ GRINER IS HOME

Irving said he’s “grateful” WNBA star Brittney Griner has returned home after being detained by Russian authorities.

“I’m grateful she’s home, grateful she’s with her family. Most importantly, humanity comes first,” Irving said. “We all feel for her. We all feel for everyone who’s wrongfully imprisoned or in some type of prison somewhere where they haven’t gotten their justice, so we feel for her for sure. I’m just grateful that we all can share in the celebration of her being here and still more work to do out in our world.”

Griner was arrested at a Russian airport on drug charges 10 months ago and was sentenced to nine years in prison. The U.S. government deemed the WNBA star was wrongfully detained. Her release was eventually orchestrated in a prisoner swap for notorious international arms dealer Viktor Bout.