![\"Brooklyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/handles-ball-minnesota-timberwolves-guard-117933444.jpg\")
Cam Thomas made his Nets return on Saturday. AP<\/p>\nBrooklyn\u2019s longest winning streak of the season was capped by its most impressive victory of the year. And it\u2019s not even close.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Nets\u2019 123-107 laugher in Minnesota wasn\u2019t just a road win. It was a statement against one of the league\u2019s best teams and one of its top players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On a night when their shots weren\u2019t falling and their strengths weren\u2019t working? They rode a huge night from Cam Thomas \u2014 returning from injury \u2014 a dominant performance from the bench and some rare finishing at the rim.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cam Thomas made his Nets return on Saturday. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played really well, we got a win out of this,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cThat\u2019s even better for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Nets (10-19) got a game-high 30 points from Thomas in his first game since Nov. 5. Their bench outscored Minnesota\u2019s 62-33, and their 66 points in the paint were a season high. In short, it didn\u2019t look flukish. It looked complete.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just connected,\u201d said Nic Claxton, who had 14 points and six rebounds. \u201cIt was a really good win to come here. Minnesota is one of the best teams in the West; to come here on their turf and get a win, we were just connected on both sides, and we made timely shots, especially towards the end of the game. So this is a great win.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It marked a season-high third straight win for the Nets, and their seventh in the past 10 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That gives the Nets the NBA\u2019s fifth-best record this month, and the top-ranked defense. They\u2019re allowing just 103.1 points and 44.0 percent shooting, after holding Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves to 44.6 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michael Porter Jr. added 27 points and 10 boards, hitting 4-of-8 from deep.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/goes-shoot-minnesota-timberwolves-guard-117933385.jpg\")
Michael Porter Jr. scores during the Nets-Timberwolves game on Dec. 27, 2025. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019ve got Mike playing the level he\u2019s playing out right now, throwing a Cam Thomas in the fold, and you have us defending the way that we are, we\u2019re extremely [tough],\u201d Claxton said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be an extremely tough team to beat every night. We\u2019re gonna compete, because those are two extremely gifted scores. And we\u2019ve got shooters around. We\u2019ve got me, Day\u2019Ron [Sharpe] at the rim. So we\u2019ve got a lot of different options, a lot to build off of.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Timberwolves (20-12) might agree. They\u2019d won 10 of 13 and had Edwards despite being listed as questionable with a shoulder injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Minnesota star had 28 points, but the Nets made him work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Clinging to an 85-80 edge after an Edwards bank shot, Brooklyn reeled off a 19-6 run that spanned the third and fourth to blow it open.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danny Wolf capped the run to make it 104-86 with 10:35 to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Porter\u2019s dagger 3-pointer padded it to 123-102 with 1:17 left.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rest of the Nets were just 7-for-32 from deep. But unable to rely on the long ball, they actually feasted at the rim and shot 54.8 percent overall against a top 5 field goal defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to always be perfect or the same way, but you always can find a way, and find a way in different ways. I like to see that efficiency on the rim,\u201d said coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez, who turned 43 Saturday. \u201cIt was a good experience because we played against a very, very good team, a very well-coached team with top-level players and experienced players. To do it on the road is very meaningful \u2026 for our growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was our best game in the paint. We\u2019ve struggled the whole year finishing at the rim, and we didn\u2019t see the ball go in a lot \u2014 I know we made 11 3s, but shooting 27 percent, shot 40 of them \u2014 they\u2019re a very good defensive team. Sometimes you\u2019ve got to win in different ways, right? The shot didn\u2019t go in, but we still played the right way and moved the ball, touched the paint, and we were able to score at the rim. So very good to see that improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brooklyn\u2019s longest winning streak of the season was capped by its most impressive victory of the year. And…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,11480,9130,21,9,24,63,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-82451","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-cameron-thomas","13":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82451","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=82451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}