Games against inferior teams at the Barclays Center should be relative must-wins for the Nets. They need every single win they can get, especially because they aren’t really a top team. They’re right in the middle, and which side of middle–better than or worse than–depends on how they do in these types of games.
Tonight, at home, against the young Minnesota Timberwolves, the Nets did not take advantage and ended up losing in brutal fashion. Leading 86-80 with 4:43 remaining in the fourth quarter, Brooklyn watched Ricky Rubio and Nikola Pekovic take over and catapult their team to a 98-91 victory. That’s a 18-5 run if you were counting. In less than five minutes.
The Nets didn’t close out this game well and they certainly didn’t start it well either. Minnesota scored 17 of the first 19 points, putting the home team in a 15-point hole right as the evening started. The Nets managed to fight back within three points by the end of the first quarter but still, showing up that lackluster is not good at all.
The second quarter was much better for Brooklyn and the Nets took a 48-47 lead at the half. Then–and I know I write this almost every game–the third quarter struck and all of a sudden, the Timberwolves were back in the lead.
The game was a little seesaw-like in the final frame as Joe Johnson and Jarrett Jack took over, scoring points left and right. Joe scored 22 points but saw his impact severely limited because of early foul trouble. He only played 31 minutes tonight.
But once the 4:43 mark hit, Minnesota controlled the game. Defensive lapses and turnovers by the Nets opened the door for the Timberwolves to grab the lead on a corner Kevin Martin three. Johnson responded with three straight points but Rubio quickly tied it up on an open layup.
Then, in maybe the worst of Brooklyn’s stunning 18 turnovers, Thaddeus Young stole the ball from Joe and Pekovic followed with an old-fashioned three-point play. That was curtains for the Nets, who let a very winnable game–AT HOME–slip away to a subpar Timberwolves team.
Some other observations I had from the game: Brook Lopez just didn’t have it tonight, either on offense or defense. He shot just 5-of-14 from the field, missing too many open shots from close to the basket. He also was dominated by Pekovic on the other end of the ball, who put up 16 points and 11 boards, with a +34 rating. That’s not a typo. Such a performance can be expected from Brook, who is still trying to get back into the flow of things in his second game of the season. Still, he really hurt the Nets, especially late…Deron Williams and Joe led the way scoring-wise, combining for 41 points on 17-of-33 shooting. They did have seven turnovers between the two of them. Minnesota scored 23 points off the Nets’ turnovers tonight, which makes winning so much harder for Brooklyn. The good news is that Deron’s jump shot was silky smooth. He dealt with a hand injury throughout the game but should be fine…Jarrett Jack really stepped up off the bench, scoring 14 points in 24 minutes. In the second half, he was hitting big shots left and right as well as making nice passes to teammates. He just makes stuff happen…Kevin Martin scored the quietest 26 points I have ever seen. The Nets should stop him and his odd form from getting shots off, and those shots from falling…The Nets lost the rebounding (51-42), turnover (18-11) and free-throw shooting (77.3 percent to 64.7 percent) battles in this game. If you want reasons for the loss, look there…Mirza Teletovic and Bojan Bogdanovic are on the floor to hit open shots. Tonight, they hit a few but also missed a ton of uncontested threes. Those shots need to be converted.
Looking Ahead
After a terrible loss, the Nets look to rebound on Friday night against the Knicks at Barclays. Would be an awfully bad game to lose.
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