INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 For much of Sunday night, the Nets couldn\u2019t buy a basket.<\/p>\n
By the end, they were no longer winless.<\/p>\n
The Nets ground their way past the short-handed Pacers 98-90 before a sellout crowd of 17,274 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. It wasn\u2019t perfect or even easy, but it was enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a pretty win, but it\u2019s a win regardless. We got that zero out of that column, so we\u2019re really happy about that,\u201d Michael Porter Jr. said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to be a good team, eventually you\u2019ve got to learn how to win games like this.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn Nets forward Julius Randle (30) shoots over Indiana Pacers guard Aaron Nesmith (23) in Indianapolis, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. AP Photo\/AJ Mast<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither team shot the ball well. Neither team cracked 100 points. That\u2019s the type of games we want to win. It was good resilience. Sometimes, we let bad offense dictate our defense, and [Sunday,] we just kept going, grinding it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nets (1-5) entered Sunday grinding in first gear, their offense struggling and sputtering.<\/p>\n
It still wasn\u2019t crisp. But against an Indiana team without Tyrese Haliburton, Ivica Zubac, Obi Toppin and T.J. McConnell, their defense, rebounding and improved attack got the job done.<\/p>\n
A week earlier, they\u2019d suffered a 136-109 loss to these Pacers, memorable for Haliburton tossing the ball off the court to himself for a dunk. The Nets bounced back in the rematch for their first victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels good. I can sleep a little bit better,\u201d Julius Randle said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got a lot to improve on. I\u2019m happy for the group. We\u2019ve been working real hard. We\u2019re sticking together in tough moments. \u2026 But it\u2019s just a start \u2014 we know we can be a lot better. We need to continue to grow and build off what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooklyn Nets forward Noah Clowney (21) dunks against the Indiana Pacers on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
That beats coming unglued in tough moments, which they\u2019d done all too often.<\/p>\n
Porter had 23 points and nine rebounds. Randle added 20 points, six assists and five boards. More importantly, he finished a plus-17, and wasn\u2019t a ball stopper. The Nets cut better and made themselves available to Randle, who released the ball quicker to find his teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just had a good talk [Saturday] as far as our offense, how we can just help each other out, things that we can get into,\u201d Randle said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were on the same page. I got into positions where maybe it was isolation and guys knew what I was looking for, and get into screen-and-rolls. It\u2019s more diverse for me how I can attack. And it\u2019s all of us on the page. Coaches want us to run, get to the corners. We got more organized with our sets, what we were trying to do. We got quality shots. We didn\u2019t make them all, but if we keep playing like that, I promise you we\u2019ll have a good chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Nets led 18-12 after a Porter free throw with 1:43 left in an ugly first quarter.<\/p>\n
They were still clinging to a 43-40 edge at the break but came out of the locker room with a 9-0 run. They forced five straight misses and a turnover.<\/p>\n
Porter started the run on a four-point play off a Randle assist. Nolan Traore (16 points, six assists) followed with his own 3, then added a midrange to make it 52-40 with 8:42 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Michael Porter Jr. of the Brooklyn Nets handles the ball against the Indiana Pacers on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Nets saw their lead shaved down to three on an Andrew Nembhard 3-pointer that made it 75-72 with 9:29 to play. They never let the Pacers get any closer.<\/p>\n
Day\u2019Ron Sharpe finished with 15 points, 13 boards, four assists and hit his only attempted 3.<\/p>\n
The Nets shot just 41.1 percent and 13-for-39 from deep. But the ball didn\u2019t stick, the shot quality was better, and they didn\u2019t let misses seep into porous defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ball has energy, and everybody touched the ball, and then there was movement of the ball and movement of bodies,\u201d head coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cThese games that you\u2019re buying into doing the right things and the shots don\u2019t fall, but you\u2019re playing defense and stay together, those are the most important ones to me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 For much of Sunday night, the Nets couldn\u2019t buy a basket. By the end, they were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,9129,4600,21,9,24,63,319],"class_list":["post-390692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-michael-porter-jr","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390692","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=390692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}