The Nets weren’t sure of what they were going to get from Brook Lopez tonight, considering he hasn’t played in a game in over two weeks. Early on against the Thunder, he looked like a rusty player who was searching for his touch. But as the game went on, he seemed to get more comfortable and ended up playing very well on both sides of the ball.
Brook finished with a team-high 18 points as the Nets won their second game in a row, dominating an Oklahoma City team decimated by injuries to its two best players, as well as other key ones. Kevin Durant (foot) and Russell Westbrook (hand) are expected to be out for at least a month longer with their injuries and the Thunder could have used them in this one.
On the strength of a 21-4 run, Brooklyn jumped out to a great start, similarly to what the team did against the Pistons. And like in that game, the strong first quarter set the tone for the rest of the game. In this game’s case, it meant the Nets basically blew the Thunder out for 44 minutes.
This game was never really in doubt. Brooklyn was up 32-19 after 12 minutes and 59-40 at the half. It didn’t who exactly was playing for Lionel Hollins, because everyone was hitting shots–twos and threes alike–and playing lockdown defense. Granted, it did help that the Thunder were missing a lot of talent, and even lost talented swingman Andre Roberson to a foot injury early on.
However, it was obvious that the Nets were on their game and played hard throughout. They won every quarter, even the third and fourth after the game was decided firmly.
The last two games must have made Lionel Hollins very happy. The Nets got beat down by the Celtics on opening night and since, they’ve responded in big ways by playing well for the full 48 minutes against both the Pistons and Thunder. That first loss is nothing but a distant memory now.
Some other observations I had from the game: We’ll start off with Brook. Once he got his feet under him, he started to play like the old, healthy, dominant Brook on offense. He was posting up Steven Adams well and came through on some contested layups while getting fouled. He even hit a jumper after coming up short on a few early ones. To boot, he grabbed six rebounds in his 24 minutes. His movement wasn’t great, but that’s to be expected with his sore foot and all. Overall, very good season debut…Deron Williams continued his surprisingly strong start to the season with a 17-point, nine-assist performance that looked more and more like vintage D-Will. The aggressiveness remained and the jump shot was accurate as well. But he impressed me the most with his dribbling (those low crossovers are so much fun to watch) and passing. He was finding open teammates in creative ways the entire night, which certainly attributed to the Nets hitting 52.4 percent of their shots. Keep it up…After two poor performances to begin his NBA career, Bojan Bogdanovic looked comfortable and like a veteran in tonight’s game. He scored 12 points on ten shots and hit a few threes to boot. The statline isn’t too amazing but he just looked like a different player, asserting himself on offense as well as creating a few turnovers on defense…Alan Anderson, in his first significant time of the season, was scorching hot from the field, hitting seven of his eight shots for 18 points in just 16 minutes. He also was 4-of-4 from behind the arc as the Nets made 11 long balls (on just 23 attempts)…Jarrett Jack, Mirza Teletovic and Mason Plumlee anchored the reserves with decent performances all around. The best thing these three did all night: force turnovers. Jack compiled four steals while Mirza intercepted a pass for an easy basket and Mason made life difficult for Oklahoma City’s frontcourt players at the basket. He also threw down some big dunks, especially an alley-oop from Bogdanovic at the end of the first half.
Looking Ahead
The Nets look to extend their winning streak to three games when they continue their homestand on Wednesday night against the 1-2 Minnesota Timberwolves.
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