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| In DeMar DeRozan's absence, the Raptors needed someone to step up. Kyle Lowry was that guy tonight. |
I guess I truly forgot how bad losing feels, and I assume the Nets did the same. Prior to tonight's game, Brooklyn had only lost one game in the 11 it had already played in January 2014. The team they lost against? The Toronto Raptors. The team they lost to tonight? The Toronto Raptors.
Now, the Nets are 10-2 in the new year, and are 10-0 against teams not based in Canada and not named after an extinct, prehistoric dinosaur.
Even though it didn't have DeMar DeRozan (ankle), a noted Net-killer, Dwane Casey's squad managed to narrowly grab a victory out of sure defeat, after Deron Williams threw a late inbounds pass–with the Nets up 1 and just 12 seconds left in regulation–right into the hands of Patrick Patterson. As you might have guessed, Patterson went right down the court and nailed a mid-range jumper to put the Raptors up 1 with six ticks left. After some confusion, Paul Pierce brought the ball up and missed a futile three-point attempt which failed to give the Nets the lead and the win. A thoroughly-brutal way to lose a basketball game.
For a change, the Nets weren't the team that led most of this game. Toronto, after jumping out to a 6-0 lead, was basically in control of this game right up until the end of the 4th quarter, building a lead of as much as 10 points. Brooklyn stayed relatively close throughout, though, but never was up by more than four points. That lead came with 2:31 left in the 4th quarter, after Paul Pierce's 3rd three-pointer in around 120 seconds and 7th of the game.
It was 100-96, in favor of the Nets, when Jonas Valanciunas (20 points, 13 rebounds) grabbed a missed John Salmons jumper and put it right back up for an easy layup. After Pierce went 1-for-2 from the free-throw line for a Valanciunas shooting foul, Greivis Vasquez hit a layup of his own to bring his team to within a single point. A few missed shots, an ill-advised D-Will pass, and a questionable charging foul on Kyle Lowry later, Pierce hit two more free throws to bring the score to 103-100 for the Nets.
Jason Kidd chose not to foul the next time down, so Salmons was able to get free for an easy layup. Then, after the Nets used their final timeout, Deron was tasked with inbounding the ball to a teammate for the presumed free throws they would take. Not so fast, said Patterson, whose long wingspan helped to intercept a terrible D-Will pass, in the backcourt, and hit the game-winning shot a few seconds later. The horrific culmination to a five-game winning streak for a team in the Nets that can use any win it can get, especially against the team leading its division, at this point.
Some other observations I had from the game: It's easy to blame this game on D-Will, and it certainly, on the surface, looks like he literally threw it. However, the Nets lost by one point, and Paul Pierce did go 1-for-2 on a pair of free throws in the final quarter that could have made a difference in this one. We don't know how the game would have played out if he sunk both FTs, but it probably would have different and may have entailed overtime…..Tonight wasn't the best night for Joe Johnson or Mirza Teletovic. They combined to shoot 5-for-16 from the field (17 points) and combined for an ugly -21 rating in a one-point game. Neither guy could find their shooting touch in this one, and it really hurt the Nets, who missed too many open threes…..Andray Blatche (8-for-11, 20 points, zero turnovers) and Paul Pierce (10-for-16, 7-for-10 from three, season-high 33 points) led the way for Brooklyn. Blatche's shaking-and-baking was unstoppable, and he even drove to the hoop a lot, uncharacteristically. Pierce, coming off a poor shooting night in his return to Boston, was amazing and locked-in from three. He almost singlehandedly brought the Nets back into this game after facing a nine-point 4th quarter deficit. He just couldn't hit a last-second heave that would have stolen a win for the Nets….Mason Plumlee and Reggie Evans both didn't get off the bench for yet another game. The Nets were outrebounded 43-36 and had no answer for Valanciunas, so tonight would have been the perfect time to get one or two of those guys in the game to body up the big Lithuanian. There's no doubt in my mind that a few minutes of Reggie, Plumlee, or both would have made a difference in terms of limiting Valanciunas' scoring and rebounding.
Looking Ahead
Thankfully, the Nets get some well-deserved rest as they next play on Friday night at Barclays against the Thunder.
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