Nets fumble huge chance
Late miscue sinks B’klyn, which falls in 2-0 hole vs. Raptors
It was a game ripe for the Nets’ taking. Brooklyn built a 14point first-quarter lead over the defending champion Toronto Raptors in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series. They then stayed afloat and gave themselves a chance to send it to overtime in a onepossession game in the waning moments of the fourth quarter.
But a bungled play — a fumbled hand-off from Joe Harris to Garrett Temple — led to a turnover and ultimately a Norman Powell fastbreak dunk that sealed a 104-99 win for the Raptors on Wednesday.
Turnovers and transition defense: They were Brooklyn’s two areas of emphasis leading into Game 2, and both came back to bite the Nets in the end.
The Nets now trail the Raptors, 0-2, after getting blown out of the water in Game 1. Only 27 teams in NBA history have ever come back from that deficit. For reference, 390 teams have won after taking a 2-0 series lead.
“We’ve got to embrace it and make the discomfort — make the 2-0 — seem like it’s comfortable,” said interim head coach Jacque Vaughn. “You’ve got to embrace it, open up to the challenge of getting one game at a time. Our group will respond, we’ll watch film together again, we’ll make more adjustments. But a lot of good from today that can carry over to the remainder of the series.”
The Nets were down three on the bungled possession, and Vaughn said he drew the critical play up for Harris, a career 43% three-point shooter. But it was Kyle Lowry’s onball defense that blew up the play, and when Harris attempted to hand the ball off to Temple, the ball bounced off his outside hand into the back court, where Powell beat every Nets player to the play and finished with an emphatic dunk to seal the Raptors victory.
Powell tormented the Nets all game: He finished with 24 points on 11-of-17 shooting from the field, with the Raptors outscoring the Nets by 16 in the 33 minutes he played.
“It was a great play call by JV, and it was great defense by the Raptors,” said starting center Jarrett Allen. “They kind of ran (at) everything I think we were doing, they were ready for anything, and we ended up fumbling the ball at the end.”
The Nets didn’t just fumble the ball. They fumbled what may ultimately be their best chance at winning a game in this series. The Raptors made only nine of their 28 threepoint attempts and shot just 19-of-28 from the line. In Game 1, Toronto made 32 of their 33 attempts at the foul line and converted on 22 of their 44 three-point attempts.
This is part of the reason why they’re the defending champions: The Raptors find ways to win, even when they’re not playing well.
Fred VanVleet, who finished with 30 points on 8of-10 shooting in Game 1, still finished with 24 points, but shot 8-of-22 to get there. AllStar Raptors forward Pascal Siakam finished with 19 points but was unable to consistently impact the game, finishing with a 6-of-14 shooting clip.
The Raptors, though, had enough firepower to sustain an early deficit along with their shooting slump. Powell caught fire, and Lowry made half his shots to get to 21 points.
The Nets turnover problems didn’t just pop up at the end of the game, either: That was their 17th giveaway of the game. Brooklyn vowed to protect the ball more efficiently after 14 turnovers in Game 1. Mission failed.
“If we cut down on one mistake every quarter. Maybe the lead goes from (14) to eight instead of 15 to a tie game,” said Caris LeVert. “We’ve just got to think about it as each possession is the most important possession on the court. I think we’re learning. We’re getting better. We’re still a new group. We’re still learning adjustments on the fly. But like I said, I’m proud of our effort over everything else. Going into next game, we’re gonna need that.”