![\"Kevin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/NYP010126NETS14JS.jpg\")
Kevin Durant of the Houston Rockets slams the ball over Nic Claxton of the Brooklyn Nets in the first half at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Thursday, January 1, 2026. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\nMissing three-fifths of their starting lineup, the Nets got eviscerated 120-96 by the Rockets before a sellout crowd of 18,003 at Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
The Nets were missing eight players, including starters Michael Porter Jr., Egor Demin and Terance Mann. <\/p>\n
They got scorched for 57.3 percent shooting, with their former star Kevin Durant having 22 points and 11 assists.<\/p>\n
Kevin Durant of the Houston Rockets slams the ball over Nic Claxton of the Brooklyn Nets in the first half at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Thursday, January 1, 2026. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\n
Brooklyn (10-21) sits fifth in the lottery odds, percentage points ahead of the Hornets.<\/p>\n
The Nets allowed a 21-7 run and trailed by double digits for the final 28 minutes of the game. They couldn\u2019t come close to handling Houston\u2019s size, behind Alperen Sengun (20 points, plus-30).<\/p>\n
Cam Thomas led Brooklyn with a team-high 21 points off the bench on 8-of-13 shooting. But no other Net mustered more than 14 points, as they shot just 45 percent and 10-of-30 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about replacing (the missing trio), because they all do very special things about the next man mentality, and do it by committee,\u201d Brooklyn coach Jordi Fernandez had said beforehand. \u201cAnd I think our group has always done a great job with that.<\/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
\u201cAnd there\u2019s a great opportunity for guys that haven\u2019t had the chance to be on the court and some others that have had different roles and we play against a very good team. We\u2019re going to need for sure everybody to have a good performance and bring positive things to the game to be able to compete with this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ziaire Williams had 14 points in his first start since November, and Danny Wolf had nine points, five assists and four rebounds in his first-ever start.<\/p>\n
![\"Cam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/NYP010126NETS15JS.jpg\")
Cam Thomas of the Brooklyn Nets puts up a shot over Amen Thompson #1 of the Houston Rockets in the second half at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Thursday, January 1, 2026. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen things don\u2019t go your way,\u201d said Fernandez. \u201cIn that first half, we were fighting. We\u2019re down 11 and we\u2019re fighting. And then sometimes what it takes is a run from the other team. And we\u2019re going to continue to fight and do the right things. I thought that we couldn\u2019t find our energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houston improved to 21-10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Missing three-fifths of their starting lineup, the Nets got eviscerated 120-96 by the Rockets before a sellout crowd…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,355,99,11480,9136,18926,21,9,24,63,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-87084","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-houston-rockets","14":"tag-kevin-durant","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87084","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=87084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}