{"id":186774,"date":"2026-04-06T04:25:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/186774\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T04:25:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:25:46","slug":"nets-give-away-draft-lottery-opportunity-with-win-over-wizards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/186774\/","title":{"rendered":"Nets give away draft lottery opportunity with win over Wizards"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was the definition of a blown opportunity.<\/p>\n

With a chance to pull even with the Wizards atop the lottery standings, the Nets instead pulled out a come-from-behind 121-115 win that saw them consigned to third place.<\/p>\n

The Nets are two full games behind Washington and a game behind the Pacers, pending their tilt vs. Cleveland. They\u2019ll host Milwaukee on Tuesday and the Pacers two nights later, with huge tanking ramifications in each.<\/p>\n

The Nets (19-59) are 2 \u00b9\/\u2082 games ahead of the Jazz and two ahead of the Kings, who played the Clippers at home on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"NetsNets guard Nolan Traore (88) shoots past Washington Wizards Leaky Black during the first half at Barclays Center, Sunday, April 5, 2026, in Brooklyn, NY. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

The Nets (19-59) were two games ahead of the Jazz and Kings, pending Utah\u2019s game against OKC and Sacramento\u2019s tilt vs. the Clippers.<\/p>\n

They trailed a skeleton Wizards crew 105-101 after Jamir Watkins\u2019 3-pointer with 3:50 left. But the Nets reeled off eight unanswered points to seize the lead for good, part of a game-breaking 14-3 run.<\/p>\n

Nolan Traore \u2014 who\u2019d been fighting through the rookie wall \u2014 had 10 of his team-high 23 points in that Nets blitz to lead the comeback.<\/p>\n

His 3-pointer made it 105-105 with 2:56 left, and his layup capped the 8-0 spurt. Traore\u2019s final 3 off a Jalen Wilson feed made it 115-108 with 1:15 left.<\/p>\n

\"DrakeDrake Powell (4) shoots one Washington Wizards forward Anthony Gill (16) during the first half at Barclays Center, Sunday, April 5, 2026, in Brooklyn, NY. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did a great job,\u201d said Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez. \u201cHe\u2019s a big reason why we won this game, especially towards the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen how much the win costs them in the lottery. But for the struggling Nets, it felt sweet on Easter Sunday.<\/p>\n

Josh Minott (15 points, three blocks, two steals) gave the Nets a 17-point lead in the first quarter, before they gave it up with a shaky second and third.<\/p>\n

But they settled in for a clean fourth, their 13-0 edge in points off turnovers the difference.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just had a collective mindset to be better than what we did in the third quarter,\u201d said Wilson. \u201cI feel like we got away (from our plan), let them get comfortable. Give any team confidence in the NBA, it can be a tough game.\u201d<\/p>\n

But we were able to get them to turn the ball over a lot and capitalize on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson finished with 19 points, five rebounds and four assists.<\/p>\n

Will Riley scored 30 for the Wizards, who suited up just eight players and dropped their sixth straight to fall to 17-61.<\/p>\n

But Washington moved 1\u00bd games clear of the Pacers and two ahead of Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

Ben Saraf, Terance Mann (right patella tendon soreness\/left Achilles) and Noah Clowney (left ankle) were ruled out, with Michael Porter Jr., Egor D\u00ebmin, Nic Claxton, Danny Wolf, Ziaire Williams and Day\u2019Ron Sharpe already sidelined.<\/p>\n

But not to be out-tanked, the Wizards played without Anthony Davis (finger), Trae Young (back\/right quad), Justin Champagnie, Bilal Coulibaly, Kyshawn George, Tre Johnson, Alex Sarr, Cam Whitmore and D\u2019Angelo Russell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This was the definition of a blown opportunity. With a chance to pull even with the Wizards atop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,21,9,24,63,319,1105],"class_list":{"0":"post-186774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-washington-wizards"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186774","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=186774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}