NETS AVOID A MINNY DISASTER
Nearly blow 10-point lead in final minutes, hold on against NBA’s worst
Wow, had a great fantasy baseball draft last night. I got Aaron Judge at a good price, I hope he doesn’t get hurt!!
The Nets had an opportunity to blow it wide open. Kyrie Irving couldn’t miss, the Timberwolves couldn’t keep up, and Brooklyn built a lead as big as 17 in the game’s first 14 minutes.
Then the Nets took their foot off the gas against the team that owns the NBA’s worst record. What was supposed to be quick and easy work turned into a 48-minute drag, a 112-107 win for the
Nets in a game that should have been decided much sooner than the 3:50 mark of the fourth quarter.
“We’d find a little separation and we couldn’t turn it up a notch to put ‘em away. In this league, especially a team like that that hasn’t won a lot of games playing against a team that’s towards the top of the conference, once they get a sniff that they’re still in this thing late, they have no pressure, nothing to lose, they’re NBA guys, and you’re hanging on for dear life,” Nets head coach Steve Nash admitted. “Not a great performance. A win is a win. We found a way to win it in the end but we’ve got a lot to improve upon. We just had a pretty poor patch recently with our play and not at our best.”
The Nets picked up their 17th win in 21 games. They remain the team with the Eastern Conference’s second-best record, a team that continues to roll with Kevin Durant sidelined with a hamstring injury. They project to continue getting better, with Durant returning to play sometime in the coming weeks, and with Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge matriculating into the Nets’ system. They remain championship favorites, a team with a talent pool compares even to Durant’s back-to-back champion Warriors teams. But the opportunity cost of not handling business early on is too high. What could have been a 25-minute night for James Harden became a 40-minute load mismanagement. Harden has been an ironman through the course of his career, but the Nets played with their food and, in effect, played with fire. In a condensed season where teams are playing more games with little practice time in between, the Nets should be searching for ways to buy rest time for their stars.
“For sure. That’s important. We take care of business and everyone gets a little more rest, a little fresher, and maybe the reason,” Nash said. We haven’t really blown anyone out this year, feels like. We’ve been in tough games.”
There’s also the competitive side: Juggernaut teams like the Nets can ill-afford to let teams like the Timberwolves hang around for quarters on end. Just being in arm’s reach of an elite opponent is a confidence booster for a Minnesota team playing with nothing to lose.
This has been a theme for the Nets this season. They have played down to lesser, non-playoff competition at almost every juncture. The Timberwolves have the NBA’s worst record and were without star point guard and former Net D’Angelo Russell (left knee surgery) or their best defender, Josh Okogie (health and safety protocols).
“It’s just maybe our lack of focus. Looking record-wise at a team we’re playing and then not staying focused like we were playing a better record-wise team. Not fundamentally boxing out, just small things. Not communicating or consistently communicating,” said Harden. “It’s just small things that we can correct and we will correct. I just think we’re looking at these teams we’re playing. It’s like alright, we might get away with it. But we gotta think bigger picture and try to be more consistent in our communication and in our principles and our fundamentals.”
Nets head coach Steve Nash has spoken at length about the team’s perceived lack of respect for those opponents with lesser records. Whatever message he’s had has not gotten through, because the Nets did not put the nail in the coffin as early as they should.
Harden finished with a 38 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds, tying Jason Kidd’s single-season record of 12 triple doubles. Harden hit what should have been a fourth-quarter dagger, a top-of-the-key three that gave the Nets a 10-point lead with 3:50 to go. The Timberwolves immediately responded with a timeout.
Shortly after, they turned the Nets over two times in a row and went on a run that made it a one-point game with less than a minute to go. Had Russell been available, the situation could have been a storybook ending for a clutch playmaker who decrees ice in his veins.
“Anytime an opposing team comes in here or we’re on the road, we feel like we’re gonna get their best shot despite their record. So just feel like we couldn’t get control of the pace of the game tonight,” said Irving, who scored 16 points of his 27 points in the first quarter. “So a few mistakes on our end that I feel like we can clean up. I think we talked about in the locker room as a group. Just watch film tomorrow see where we can get better. These games are coming quick, so we’ll take the win and you know see what we can learn.”
There is no story, however, if the Nets handle business when they should and expand leads, rather than blow them. The Nets must stop playing with their food if they hope to avoid playing with fire.