Lucky to be playing a team that is now a dreadful 4-36 on the road this season, the Brooklyn Nets came right to the brink of clinching at least the No. 5 seed with a win over the lowly Orlando Magic tonight at the Barclays Center.
Brooklyn, without Alan Anderson and Shaun Livingston available, started off this game–as they have done often recently–with a total lack of energy, intensity, and/or fight to win this game. As the Nets round out their regular season, all they can do is maintain their No. 5 seed, which should realistically happen. Orlando, on the other hand, is mired far into the lottery and is playing out the string, but also has a lot of young guys trying to prove their worth in the league, so the Magic came out strong and were hitting shots early.
The second quarter was even, for the most part, but the third was when the Nets starting to flex their muscles and show that they, not the Magic, were the playoff team. Brooklyn outscored Orlando, and Jason Kidd’s former teammate Jacque Vaughn, Orlando’s head coach, by a margin of 33-21. This happened on the strength of seven 3-pointers in the frame, which came from Deron Williams, Mirza Teletovic, and Joe Johnson.
This long-range outburst put the Nets up nine heading into the fourth quarter. Then, Brooklyn fended off multiple Magic comeback attempts–one serious one with a Marcus Thornton triple–in order to go up 97-84 with around 60 seconds left in regulation. That would prove to be insurmountable.
Some other observations I had from the game: It feels like every game the Nets play, Mason Plumlee dunks a lot and comes close to a double-double. He did both today, as he spent much of the game above the rim and scored 17 points and grabbed 11 rebounds as Brooklyn surprisingly outrebounded Orlando 43-31….Mirza Teletovic actually led the game in points with 20, which came on 7-of-12 shooting (4-of-7 from three). When Mirza’s shot is on, he can score in bunches, but when it’s not, he really hurts the Brooklyn offense. Thankfully, it was on today and helped the Nets win….Joe and Deron both shot well in this one, combining for 33 points on 11-of-23 shooting (7-of-14 from three). They had to, since Andray Blatche, Thornton, and Paul Pierce (who left early with a shoulder injury) didn’t do much on offense.
Looking Ahead
The Nets stay in Brooklyn to finish off their home regular season slate on Tuesday night against the recently eliminated Knicks. Then, the day after, the Nets end their regular season where it began: in Cleveland against the Cavaliers.
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