A recurring theme this season for the Nets has been their confounding inconsistency, in terms their ability to beat some of the NBA’s best teams–like the Warriors, Mavericks, Cavaliers and Spurs–only to lose to some of the worst–looking at you, Timberwolves and 76ers. Whenever you start to feel good about them, they let you down with a brutal loss.
This has been the main reason why the Nets haven’t had a winning streak of more than three games the entire season. In crushing Byron Scott’s injury-addled and talent-depleted squad this afternoon at the Barclays Center, Brooklyn–yet again–won its third consecutive game, seventh in its last nine, and possibly moved into the No. 8 spot in the East.
The Nets never were able to blow the Lakers out in this one, per se. The first quarter got off to a rollicking start, with Brooklyn attacking the porous Los Angeles defense with ease. Brook Lopez, after a few early missed shots, was on point at the rim and racked up the points quickly–he scored 30 and grabbed 11 rebounds, his fourth 30-point performance in his last six games. This led the Nets to take a 30-19 lead after the first 12 minutes. At first, it appeared as if Brooklyn was headed to a nice, easy Sunday afternoon victory.
Then, in the second quarter, the young Lakers started to respond, mainly with former Knick Jordan Hill at the forefront. Hill, who missed LA’s last three games as a healthy scratch, played instead of Ed Davis and didn’t disappoint, scoring 22 points to go with 16 boards on 10-17 shooting in 27 minutes. Somehow, the Nets had no answers for him or for Wesley Johnson (17 points) as the Lakers cut their deficit to five with 4:43 left in the half.
However, the Nets fought back, making their next seven field goals (not a mistake) to go back up by double digits and eventually 61-50–each team scored 31 points in the second quarter and 24 in the third–by the half. The almost exact same thing happened in the next frame, as Los Angeles made another run only to be rebuffed by Brooklyn yet again.
The final quarter saw a more sustained Lakers’ attack, in which they turned a 14-point deficit at the start of the frame into just a three-point hole in less than 10 minutes. Up just 96-93 with 3:48 to play after a Hill jumper, the Nets called a timeout and immediately ran a beautiful play to get Brook Lopez an easy dunk.
That put them up five and when Hill took and missed two jumpers on LA’s next two possessions, Joe Johnson sealed the game with a three. It wasn’t easy, but for the Nets, it never is. Still, though, they got a win and that’s really all that matters at this point.
Assorted thoughts: There isn’t much more to be said about Brook at this point. He has begun to near-singlehandedly destroy opposing teams in the paint on offense and has managed to improve his much-maligned rebounding. As I mentioned above, he has been scoring at prodigious paces lately but also has grabbed at least nine boards in his last threes games. The only other time he has done that this season was earlier in March, when he did it for four games in a row. But, right now, he is playing a better all-around game than he has in a long, long time. The confidence is there with him and that might be the most important development….After scoring a surprise seven points in 11 minutes during his Nets debut in Friday’s win over the Cavaliers, Earl Clark couldn’t hit anything this afternoon. He went 2-10 from the field, missing all five of his three-point attempts, and was wildly inaccurate even on open shots. Granted, he did collect eight rebounds but showed why he has bounced around the NBA, D-League and even the Chinese Basketball Association. He provides some value and size, but is far from a perfect player….Strong games from Markel Brown and Deron Williams, who combined to score 30 points on 11-24 shooting. D-Will also had nine assists, which is good to see. And with Markel, he only went 2-7 from three yet looks to have a nice shooting form that should improve over time. The quality he definitely doesn’t lack is belief in his own abilities, that’s for sure….Joe Johnson had a quiet triple double bid with 18 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. He also knocked down three important long balls for a team that has continued to struggle from deep–8-28 from three today. The man does it all.
Onto the next one: The Nets stay at home and will take on the Pacers at Barclays on Tuesday. The winner of that game will win the season series–and therefore playoff tiebreaker–between the two games and will also pick up an important game in the standings.
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