New York Daily News

Nets stumble in their return

Short-handed Brooklyn falls to Magic in first bubble game

- KRISTIAN WINFIELD

When it rains it pours, and on the Nets, it poured all afternoon. Despite a hotshootin­g start to their season opener against the Magic on Friday, the Nets couldn’t stop Orlando from heating up. They trailed by as many as 30 points in the third quarter of a game whose final score did not reflect the reality of the situation.

The Nets will be lucky to hold onto their playoff standing, and their only saving grace is a ninth-seed Wizards team projecting to lose as many or more games as Brooklyn. The Nets ultimately lost its opener, 128118, behind a 16-0 fourth-quarter rally from their reserves against Orlando’s. They gave up almost 130 points to a Magic team that averages 106, good for fourth-worst in the NBA.

“We played with a lot of pace. We weren’t defending as much as we wanted to, and after that, we continued to not defend and the pace dropped off,” veteran guard Garrett Temple said. “For us to win games, we’ve got to defend while we’re out there. Offensivel­y, we shared the ball, we did what we were supposed to do, but we’ve gotta guard if we’re gonna win games.”

The Nets never projected to be very good. They entered the Orlando bubble without five starters — Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, DeAndre Jordan, Taurean Prince and Wilson Chandler — without Kevin Durant, who hasn’t played a game all season, and with a roster filled with G-League call-ups and veterans who hadn’t played all season.

The Magic outmatched the Nets at every position. Orlando shot 53% as a team, 90% at the foul line and made more than a third of the threes they attempted in the game. The Nets shot reasonably well from the field, converting on 63% of their twos and 31% of their threes. But the inability to stop the Magic, led by Evan Fournier and Nikola Vucevic, did Brooklyn in in its first bubble game.

“I think we showed a little bit of our lack of size in the first half, whether it was them attacking the paint, offensive re

bounding, and I talked to the team about, we have to embrace that suck a little bit, the fact that we’re going to have to be extremely gritty and determined to put a body on somebody every single possession,” interim coach Jacque Vaughn said. “Production-wise, their ability to try to get the ball out of Caris’ hands and blitz him was a big part of their game plan. Gave us more than 40 opportunit­ies to shoot threes, so when teams do that, you have to make them pay.”

LeVert, who has been given the green light as the team’s go-to playmaker in Orlando, finished with 17 points but shot 7-of-17 from the field and 0-of-4 from three-point range. The only Nets starter who wasn’t at least minus-20 was Joe Harris, who finished with 14 points on 6-of-11 shooting. Even Harris was minus-14.

The games don’t get much easier than the Magic. The Nets will face their easiest opponent next: a Wizards team without both Bradley Beal and Davis Bertans. But while the Wizards lost by 13 to the talented Phoenix Suns, they never trailed by more than 15.

For the Nets, it’s back to the drawing board. They need to find new ways to use LeVert, who was the focal point of Orlando’s defensive scheme. They need to get in better condition, because how else can they play with pace for an entire game? They need to get more creative on the defensive end, knowing that the opposition, for the most part, will only get tougher from here.

Ultimately, there may be nothing they can do. The Nets were underdogs once six of their best players stayed in-market versus traveling with the team.

Here’s another dose of reality: In losing to Orlando, Brooklyn is now the eighth seed. If they thought getting pummeled by the Magic was a reality check, wait until Giannis Antetokoun­mpo is across the floor in the first-round of the playoffs.

Oh, wait: They have to make it there first, and the ninthplace Wizards are up next on Sunday.

 ?? GETTY ?? Nets’ Caris LeVert looks for room to operate against Magic defense during first half on Friday at ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex in Orlando.
GETTY Nets’ Caris LeVert looks for room to operate against Magic defense during first half on Friday at ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex in Orlando.
 ??  ??
 ??  ??
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States