CLEVELAND — The Nets extended the league’s longest winning streak, and continued its most glaring turnaround. Jacque Vaughn has refocused a disjointed-looking bunch into a single-minded team focused on one thing: Hooping. 

Brooklyn ran its league-high winning streak to nine straight with a 125-117 victory over Cleveland on Monday night before a sellout crowd of 19,432 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. 

The Nets (22-12) not only vaulted over the Cavaliers into third in the East. They also improved to 20-7 since Vaughn replaced Steve Nash as coach. 

How? 

“Basketball,” Vaughn said simply. “We haven’t steered away from ‘today is today.’ The most important part of today is we’re trying to win this ballgame. When we step into the gym every single day, it’s about basketball: How are we going to take care of each other on the floor, cover for each other on the floor. It’s about basketball.” 

And they’ve reminded everyone how great they can be at it. 

Kevin Durant had 32 points, nine rebounds and five assists, while Kyrie Irving had 32 on a season-high 7 of 11 from deep. T.J. Warren added season-highs of 23 points and eight boards off the bench. 

“It’s great to see from the group, just our response,” Vaughn said. “We talked about how they were going to make runs, which they did. That is a good basketball team that we played against. But our shot-making tonight was extreme level.” 

Extreme is an understatement. The Nets backed up Friday’s mauling of Milwaukee by shooting .573 — and 18 of 30 from 3 — against the league’s top defense. 

The Nets, who opened the season 2-5 under Nash, lost Vaughn’s first game in charge on Nov. 1. Irving got suspended two days later (for refusing to apologize for promoting an anti-Semitic movie), and at their Nov. 4 shootaround Vaughn got up in front of them and beseeched them to focus on basketball. 

“It was, without a doubt. It’s part of it. We stress that,” Vaughn said. “When we came back as a group, we pledged to each other that it was going to be about basketball and hopefully not let anything interfere — any outside noise interfere with that. And our guys have done an unbelievable job of protecting each other and making this thing about basketball. 

“Our shootaround in Washington was the precipice of that, me getting up in front of the group and being as vulnerable as I could be and explain the situation and really telling them I’m going to try to be as consistent as I possibly can every day and as honest as I can, and I’m going to always do what’s best for the group. Guys really appreciated that and grew to understand it, understand our ways, and we really create an atmosphere of basketball.” 

That atmosphere is working, as they survived 46 points from Darius Garland for a huge win. 

“It appears that basketball is the main thing. You’re hearing less noise about other things. It seems like every conversation is just about basketball now,” JB Bickerstaff said. “When you have players the caliber of Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, Kyrie Irving, if basketball is the main thing they’re going to be very difficult to beat. … I give Jacque a lot of credit.” 

Trailing 10-9 after a Donovan Mitchell step-back 3, the Nets ran off 10 unanswered points to take a lead they would never surrender. 

Warren’s 3 capped the run and it was 34-22 by the end of the first quarter. A Simmons’ hook made it 40-29. 

Cleveland (22-13) started to double Durant and it sparked a 14-4 run. Garland’s 3 capped the spurt and cut the Nets’ lead to 44-43. It was 46-45 with 3:15 left in the half, but the Nets scored the next 13 points in a run that reached 19-2. The Nets’ cushion eventually got to 68-49 on Irving’s 3 to open the second half and again at 102-83 with 10:13 remaining in the game. 

The Nets held Cleveland at arm’s length the rest of the evening. Garland pulled Cleveland within four with 44 seconds left. But the Nets closed it out from the line. 

“We’ve always been about hooping,” Durant sad. “There’s more noise on the outside … but what we did was simplify both ends of the basketball, shored up our roles individually. Coach shored up our roles, letting us know each day what he needs from us. That’s been the focus.”