On Wednesday night, the Brooklyn Nets had a game to win. It was the game to unite both sides of the aisle, whether you believe rooting for your favorite team to lose is a morally corrosive practice that leaves stains on the heart of your fandom or if you believe more in the marriage of fandom and pragmatism/
Not only did they have the Knicks in MSG, but they had a Knicks team with water creeping into their lungs: 7-11 since winning the NBA Cup and entering Wednesday on a 2-9 stretch. If there’s not full-blown panic over in Manhattanites, it’s just around the corner, with beat writers reporting that the team hasn’t fully bought into their roles and advocating for a major shake-up at the trade deadline.
The Nets don’t own the Knicks first-round pick this year — they do in odd-numbered years — but that hardly mattered on Wednesday. Brooklyn has shorted New York’s long-term future, but in the short-term, they had a chance to plunge the Knicks further into disarray on Wednesday. Whether you hate the blue-and-orange or don’t pay them any mind, you can’t deny the hilarity of a 12-29 team handing them their 10th loss in 12 games, right in the middle of a championship-or-bust season.
Anyway, that’s not what happened. The Knicks secured their largest margin of victory in franchise history. Seriously. Here’s a brief list of stuff that happened:
Landry Shamet shot 6-of-6 from deepThe Nets shot 10-of-27 in the paintMike Brown challenged a call up by 48Mike Brown lost that challengeThe Nets (with 11 points to spare) scored the fewest points by an NBA team in a game this seasonThanks to a 5-0 run to close the game, the Nets avoided the worst margin of defeat in franchise historyWhy are you still reading this?
Let’s allot some brief space for Ziaire Williams, the only Net who, by any measure, played well. He (with some help from Day’Ron Sharpe) desperately tried to raise Brooklyn’s energy level in the first half, deflecting pass after pass and applying ball pressure to Jalen Brunson, who was otherwise seeing cones. Williams scored 11 points on 5-of-10 shooting with just a rebound and a steal, but he was the only one who matched New York’s verve.
Every other aspect of these 48 minutes was depressing. Michael Porter Jr. continued his cool-streak with a 4-of-14 performance, Egor Dëmin hit two quick threes before air-balling a floater by a foot, scoring zero points the rest of the way. Nolan Traore had a 0/1/3 line with three turnovers and Danny Wolf got owned by Deuce McBride at the rim. Terance Mann, Jalen Wilson, and Tyrese Martin — all of whom were initially out of the rotation — entered early in the fourth quarter, only for the Nets to go scoreless until the 5:38 mark.
Jordi Fernández fell on the sword postgame: “This was a tough one, but show up the next day and have positive energy and work and get better and go out there and compete. I have to help them better … players are not responsible for it, so I got to make sure that they understand the values that we have and how we want to play, and we’ll work together.”
Maybe rooting for losses and encouraging a tank isn’t about pragmatism. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism. The Brooklyn Nets and their fans had a rare opportunity on Wednesday, to get a win without worrying about a ping-pong ball, to be a true thorn in the Knicks’ side. With that in mind, the second-worst loss in franchise history tastes even more bitter.
Oh well. At least they’re tanking.
“This doesn’t stop the plan that we have. It’s just, obviously, a tough experience to go through.” — Jordi Fernández
Final Score: Brooklyn Nets 120, New York Knicks 66