Nets lastly get second win with blowout over lowly Wizards
WASHINGTON — The Nets picked up their second win of the season Sunday.
Have been their victories Pyrrhic, or had been they progress?
Brooklyn routed Washington 129-106 earlier than a small gathering at CapitalOne Enviornment, listed as 14,164 however showing about half that measurement. They got here out on a soccer Sunday to observe a pair of groups tanking for lottery positioning, and the Nets lose by successful.
The blowout noticed the Nets enhance to 2-11, the third-worst document within the league — and thus, third seed within the lottery. Each wins got here in opposition to the 2 groups “forward” of them, with the Wizards and Pacers each a league-worst 1-12.
And whereas Washington dropped its eleventh straight sport, the Nets have received two of their final six, main by as many as 24 factors and exhibiting enchancment on the glass and on protection.
“We’re making an attempt to get one % higher,” Nets coach Jordi Fernández stated. “We attempt to problem our guys to play the fitting approach. We had a number of video games the place we confirmed indicators of constant competitiveness, after which we had a very poor sport, and now we’re again to 2 video games of being fairly aggressive. Now we wish to present the third one.
“Once you’re making an attempt to attain the belongings you consider are the fitting issues in fashion of play, that’s once you begin seeing the end result. And never simply the end result; it’s the event. It’s all collectively, if you consider it. So I don’t assume it’s a battle of (standings); we care about ourselves. We would like our gamers to get higher one by way of 17. The expansion of the teaching workers and the group, that’s our imaginative and prescient.”
Brooklyn has displayed development, even regardless of the lack of main scorer Cam Thomas.
Fernández challenged Michael Porter Jr. to chop and transfer and quit himself to assist his teammates. The veteran had a game-high 33 factors, 9 rebounds and 7 assists, ending a plus-16.
The Nets have struggled on protection and the boards, their common of 26.7 defensive rebounds coming into Sunday the worst since 1998-99, in response to Elias. Their 62.5 defensive rebound proportion was the third-worst in recorded league historical past, and worst because the 1997-98 Raptors. However they received that battle in opposition to Washington.
Brooklyn received the glass 44-33, and the defensive boards 37-30. And it held the woebegone Wizards to only 44 % capturing, blocking eight photographs.
And after Alex Sarr got here in averaging 19.1 factors and eight.6 rebounds, they held final 12 months’s No. 2 draft choose to only 9 factors and three boards earlier than fouling out. Nic Claxton took up the problem and had 17 factors, 9 boards, seven assists and 4 blocks because the Nets had an all-around efficiency.
“It goes again to our staples, and all the pieces we do to measure them,” Fernández stated. “And regardless of the consequence is, if we care for these issues — our ball stress, our communication, our a number of efforts, our pace-and-space, and our paint touches and our ball rotation — if we accomplish all that, it’s going to work out.
“It might not be (Sunday). If we do all these issues very nicely…if we maintain doing it, we’re going to see it. And we’re not obsessive about scoring extra factors than the opposite staff. We’re obsessive about taking part in persistently the fitting approach and taking part in an excellent model of basketball.”
Tyrese Martin had 20 factors for Brooklyn and completed plus-26.
