After three highly uninspiring quarters, the Brooklyn Nets finally woke up, decided to play actual basketball on both ends of the floor and rode a very strong fourth quarter en route to a must-have victory over the lottery-bound Orlando Magic on Wednesday at Barclays.
With a 38-44 record, the Nets are now a half-game behind the Indiana Pacers, who are playing the Memphis Grizzlies right now. Should the Pacers lose, they and the Nets would have the same record. However, because the Nets won the season series, a tie would make Brooklyn the No. 8 seed and shut Indiana out of the postseason.
Although they had absolutely everything to play, the Nets came out of the gate very poorly and allowed the Magic, with 25 wins on the season, to get open shot after open shot. Orlando was up by as much as nine points in the first frame behind strong outside shooting from–listen to this–forward Nikola Vucevic and Andrew Nicholson.
The Magic didn’t have Long Island native Tobias Harris or Evan Fournier, but they did have a roster full of young players with nothing to play for, except for pride. That roster threatened to blow out the Nets during a few points of the second quarter, even with Brooklyn’s significant experience and talent advantage. But, the Magic never were able to put the Nets away, which allowed them to be down just four points at the half.
Brooklyn, then, decided to stop messing around and would go on to tie the game after three quarters, even after looking completely dead in the third quarter. Jarrett Jack and Bojan Bogdanovic showed the first signs of life and it went around, which led to the score being knotted up at 75.
Once the fourth quarter started, though, it was all Nets. They doubled up the Magic in the quarter, 26-13, as Bojan continued to hit threes, Joe Johnson came to life with his patented floaters and Mason Plumlee even took Brook Lopez’ fourth quarter minutes to play lockdown defense on Nikola Vucevic. A lot was happening, and it mostly involved good Brooklyn offense and anemic Orlando offense, which is always a good combination. As the game wound down, the Nets built a double-digit lead and would never back down. It wasn’t easy, but a win is all that matters.
Assorted thoughts: Five Nets ended up scoring in double figures, but the two guys who really led the charge were Jarrett and Bojan. Jack hit three of his first four threes–I know, I couldn’t believe it either–but only ended up going 3-for-9 from the field overall. But, as bad as the overall numbers were, the Nets needed a spark in the second quarter. Someone had to provide it and Jarrett stepped up. On the other hand, Bojan may have played the best game of his young career on a night he had to play the best. He went 12-for-17 from the floor–4-for-8 from three–to score a career-high 28 points. If the Magic give him a bit of space, he took advantage. Without him, the Nets wouldn’t have won….Mason Plumlee hasn’t been too good lately but he really stepped up tonight. Got to give him the credit there.
Onto the next one: If the Pacers win, it’s the offseason for the Nets. If they lose, the Nets match up with the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the playoffs and will probably start play on Sunday night.
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