Steve Nash says Kyrie Irving's clutch performance 'brought us home'

Kyrie Irving wound up being the catalyst, and one of the heroes, for the Nets in their 145-141 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday.

Irving scored just eight points in the first three quarters of the game, knocking just three of his 16 shots. But he dropped 17 points in the final quarter, hitting seven of his 11 field goal attempts.

"I think in the case of Ky, he just was having an off night up until the fourth," said head coach Steve Nash. "He finally got his rhythm, and that gave him juice. We tried to put him in situations that he can thrive with an open floor and space it out for him, and he can attack the big, and he was obviously wonderful in the fourth quarter. ... Ky definitely brought us home."

Nash's advice to his star point guard was simple: keep doing you.

"I just told him to stay with it. You know what he's capable of," Nash said. "For me, it was just a frustrating night for him, it just didn't feel like he can get into a rhythm and find his spots, almost like he wasn't comfortable."

After a brief exchange with Kevin Durant almost halfway through the fourth quarter, that's when Irving started to cook up.

"And finally, he found it," Nash said. "He dug deep and got a rhythm, found his comfort, and was getting to his spots and executing."

Aside from "trying to get him in as many open-floor situations as possible," Nash doesn't take much credit for Irving's spectacular crunch time performance.

The Nets and Hawks will battle it out again at Barclays Center on Friday.