The Nets trailed the Lakers by one entering the fourth quarter Friday night at Crypto.com Arena. Then their starters barely touched the floor. Nic Claxton played zero fourth-quarter minutes. Ziaire Williams played zero. Noah Clowney played zero in his return from injury. Nolan Traor\u00e9 played two. Drake Powell played four, all in garbage time.<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Lakers took full advantage, turning a one-point game into a 17-point finish in a 116-99 loss that dropped Brooklyn to 17-57.<\/p>\n
For a Nets team grinding through the final game of a rough West Coast trip, it was another night that captured the push-and-pull of this season. Brooklyn competed. Brooklyn hung around. Brooklyn also walked out with another loss, and at this stage, that\u2019s not exactly an accident.<\/p>\n
The Nets opened the game missing their first five 3-point attempts, and the Lakers pounced with a 15-4 run. It looked like it could get away early. Instead, Brooklyn settled in and traded punches. By the end of the first quarter, the Nets had trimmed it to 35-30, with Josh Minott leading the charge off the bench with eight points while hitting two of his three 3-point attempts.<\/p>\n
Minott kept building from there. He finished with 18 points in 26 minutes, shooting 50% from the field and 44% from deep. And with Brooklyn giving him an extended look, he\u2019s been producing. Over his previous five outings entering Friday, the 6-8 forward had averaged 13.6 points, three rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.6 steals in 24.2 minutes, while shooting 51% from the field and 15-for-29 from behind the arc.<\/p>\n
The Nets trailed 61-59 at halftime, with Claxton leading them with 12 points on 86% shooting, plus five rebounds and a block. The half ended with a jolt when Traor\u00e9 drilled a 27-footer at the buzzer after an errant pass from Clowney. Entering the fourth, Brooklyn trailed 85-84 after outscoring the Lakers 25-24 in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
But the Lakers responded late with a quick 10-2 burst that created separation and held it. Luka Doncic finished with 41 points in 39 minutes. Austin Reaves had 26, including 15 in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Williams finished with 16 points in 25 minutes, plus two rebounds, two assists and three steals. The points extended his career-long streak to five straight games with at least 15. The steals extended his career-long streak to 14 straight games with a steal.<\/p>\n
With all of that, Brooklyn still left with a loss that mattered to the standings and the bigger picture. They have a pair of young wings continuing to emerge, and their contracts are team friendly. Minott has a team option for $2.5 million next season, while Williams has a team option for $6.2 million. Both will be unrestricted free agents in 2027-28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nets trailed the Lakers by one entering the fourth quarter Friday night at Crypto.com Arena. Then their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,15870,4475,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-178266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-lakers","tag-nets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}