Nets Respond From Dreadful Loss By Beating Philly

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It requires a certain fortitude to be a Nets fan. The community, while growing incrementally, is dwarfed by rivals in the same city. Finding others with whom to commiserate can be a chore.

Ant then there’s the team, which has moved around the area four times in my lifetime and whose last title came during the final ABA season in 1976. Any time they subsequently got close, something always upended the franchise and sent it into years of despair. Even after Julius Erving was traded before the team merged into the NBA, some of the game’s All-Time greats wore Nets uniforms—Jason Kidd and Vince Carter, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, and, most recently, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

The KD/Kyrie era seems like ages ago, but it’s only been a little over a year since they begged out of Brooklyn. What’s left is an inconsistent squad that has underperformed relatively low expectations.  

And yet I can’t look away. These Nets bring out the Godfather, Part III Michael Corleone in me. When Brooklyn swept its two-game mini-series with Atlanta over the weekend to creep within two games of the Hawks in the race for the 10^th and final seed for the Eastern Conference play-in round, I went full-bore, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”.

As it turned out, the sentiment shared by many Nets fans, including me, in the aftermath of those promising wins that new Head Coach Kevin Ollie found a formula to get his team to play correctly and hard every night was at best premature.

Because it only took the next game on Monday night for the Nets to revert back to an unacceptable brand of basketball that couldn’t beat the G-League equivalent Grizzlies on Brooklyn’s home floor. It was a hideous display, lowlighted by a slew of missed free throws and layups, inexcusable efforts on the glass, and enough dumb plays on both ends (Nic Claxton’s technical foul for pounding the ball after a dunk, all the breakdowns that left Luke Kennard, Memphis’ sole shooter, wide open to knock down 6-of-9 three-pointers, etc.) to cost them a desperately-needed win.

And then, when you just knew that this team would find a built-in excuse for losing to a Sixers squad missing All-Stars Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey on Tuesday’s back-to-back, Brooklyn (25-37) rose to the occasion down the stretch to come away with a 112-107 victory.

I was out—and then I’m back in.

Who the heck knows what Nets squad we’ll see in Detroit on Thursday, the first of six consecutive road games? If you think the Nets will have learned their lesson about taking an inferior team with only nine wins all season lightly and can’t lose, oh yes they can.  

Drilling down, we have no idea who will even be available for Brooklyn on this extended trip, as Cam Johnson sprained his ankle and exited the game for good during the second quarter, joining injured teammates Ben Simmons, Cam Thomas, and Day’Ron Sharpe on the sidelines. Lonnie Walker IV was questionable going into Tuesday’s contest due to a left ankle sprain, but fortunately he suited up because his 19 points off the bench, along with Dorian Finney-Smith’s and Dennis Schroder’s 20 points apiece, saved the day for Brooklyn.

We can be certain that Mikal Bridges will play in his 455^th consecutive game in Detroit despite a right wrist injury that appeared to hamper his shooting and ballhandling versus Memphis and Philly. Hopefully he’s a quick healer because though the shorthanded Sixers and lowly Pistons might be two of them, there’s only so many teams the Nets can defeat without needing Bridges’ and Thomas’ scoring.  

The depleted Nets bench has vexed Ollie, who was able to get away with utilizing some ill-conceived lineups against a Sixers club that was sorely lacking rim protection without their MVP Embiid. What was Keita Bates-Diop doing on the floor in a close game? The Nets were outscored by nine points during his six minutes. I do give Ollie credit, though, for sticking with rookie Jalen Wilson, the King of the Broken Play, for 23 minutes as his three-point shooting has regressed to the mean (4-for-his-last 17).

Unlike Monday night, the Nets were able to overcome their adversities—they went about 7:30 without a field goal in falling behind by 14 points during the first half—because they made sure they weren’t going to get outworked again with the game on the line. Finney-Smith had a couple of tough buckets and a three-ball, Schroder finished a pair of drives (he had been shooting 36.8% in the restricted area in the nine games following his Nets debut against San Antonio, per NBA.com), and even Dennis Smith Jr. contributed a big-time play with an intercepted pass and breakaway 360 dunk to put Brooklyn up by three with 4:28 remaining.  

I’ll admit, it felt good to see the Nets bounce back like that. Why should I, or anyone care about a team destined for April golf outings? Other than that’s what diehard fans do--however illogical it sounds--it’s better for the Nets’ long-term plan that they don’t look like a franchise that’s about to plummet into the abyss like those lost-cause years between the short-lived KG & KD eras. With Houston owning Brooklyn’s 2024 first-round pick outright, losing accrues zero benefits anyway.

Believe me, I was so close to signing off on this Nets season following Monday’s disgrace. It would have been better for my mental and physical health. But as long as more than remote possibility exists that Brooklyn can qualify for a sixth straight playoff berth—and since they’re still just 2.5 games back with 20 games to go, there is—I’m willing to risk the disappointment.