Not that it needs repeating, but the six-month, 82-game NBA regular season feels impossibly long. For every national TV nail-biter, or the performance art of Bam Adebayo sloshing his way to 83 points, there are five forgettable games and a road trip where the days all blend together, for both good and bad teams.
There are levels, of course. Rooting for Victor Wembanyama to continue playing extraterrestrial ball in March is still more exciting than rooting for a tanking team on the first day of the season, but 4,000 minutes of regular-season basketball numbs us all. For the Brooklyn Nets, that means a 40-point blowout is rather routine.
The Detroit Pistons visited Barclays Center on Tuesday evening — the second game of a back-to-back for Brooklyn — and the game was decided almost immediately…
Plenty of stats to choose from, but here are just a couple: The Pistons outscored the Nets 64-24 in the paint. The Nets missed all 14 of their 3-point attempts in the first half.
It was inevitable that the East’s #1 seed would take revenge on Brooklyn, who, on Saturday, came back from 23 points down to secure a wild upset win. Particularly with Cade Cunningham, who put up 21/3/15 on 8-of-10 shooting with the ease of an offseason workout, back in the fold. The strange part was that this was the game Brooklyn tanked. Not Saturday’s visit to Detroit, not Monday’s smooth victory over a depleted Memphis Grizzlies squad, but a game against the best team in the conference.
Sure, Michael Porter Jr. played on Tuesday after resting the previous day, shooting 7-of-14 to score 19 points, but the two main heroes of Saturday’s comeback victory sat: Day’Ron Sharpe with a thumb injury, and Ziaire Williams with illness. But let’s not question the severity of those ailments; let’s instead look at the bench lineup Jordi Fernández deployed vs. Detroit…
The Nets are very bad, by design. Now 17-48, they will likely finish with the fourth-worst record in the league, if not higher. But do they know how to tank, and are they willing to get as shameless as some of the other bottom-dwellers? It appears the answer is no.
Anyway, the game. Despite the Pistons playing on cruise control for all 48 minutes, we did have some character in this one, some sign that the Nets were playing for something slightly more than fulfilling contractual obligations. Josh Minott played 21 minutes, his career-high as a Net, scoring nine points on eight shots, the most memorable of which was this poster…
In the span of 15 seconds in the second quarter, Nolan Traore committed a flagrant foul against Ron Holland, then Noah Clowney received a technical foul for another infraction against Holland…who in turn received a technical foul for flopping.
Among the real positives (of which, in a tanking season, there tend to be even as the blowout losses pile up) was Ben Saraf. The #26 overall pick put up 10/2/6 on 2-of-2 shooting and 6-of-6 from the line, and while Jordi Fernández admonished him for his two early turnovers, Saraf showed some of the ball-handling poise we’ve been waiting to see from him all season…
“Even though sometimes he’ll make a mistake, he’s got to go back, do it again, and learn,” said Fernández of the lefty point guard postgame.
Two-way player Chaney Johnson got his first extended run with the big-league club, playing 22 minutes and shooting 2-of-3, including a corner trey. Drake Powell, making his second consecutive start, hit a pair of triples in the third quarter as well as a nice floater off a drive. For a player just re-called from the G League, it certainly could have been worse, as he finished with 10/0/1 in his 23 minutes of play.
Jalen Wilson and Danny Wolf also reached double-digit points, while Nic Claxton shot just 0-of-2, overwhelmed by Jalen Duren and his game-high 26 points.
Postgame I projected my own feelings onto Wilson, who has been on three very bad Nets teams thus far in his career and experienced only a few stretches of sunlight, and asked him if he yearns for brighter days in the midst of such consistent losing.
The response: “I think my mindset and the team’s as well, from what we know, is just taking it game by game. Of course, we all want to win, but when we was starting out, you know, the next game we played, we had to start those habits. It’s not just going to come in the blink of an eye, and people aren’t just going to let us win the NBA. Everybody’s good. And we have to take advantage of the games we have now, this season. If we want to look forward, it has to start now.”
Now that’s a professional answer. Indeed, it does have to start now for the Brooklyn Nets. For the time being, that means continuing to rack up the losses.
It was 70º in Brooklyn today. Spring is almost here.
Final Score: Detroit Pistons 138, Brooklyn Nets 100
Three Nets made the injury report on Tuesday evening: Egor Dëmin, of course shut down with season-ending plantar fasciitis, Ziaire Williams, stricken with illness, and Day’Ron Sharpe, out with a left thumb sprain.
Pregame, Jordi Fernández said that there was no timeline for Sharpe to return from his thumb sprain, only “whatever time it takes for him to feel good to play again.”
Adam Hagy/NBAE via Getty Images
The Nets hit the road for two games against Eastern Conference opponents, beginning with the Atlanta Hawks. Tip-off is scheduled for Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. ET.