Nets bow to King
The Nets‘ inconsistency can be maddening. Just two nights after they hit 25 treys in a 17-point victory over the Bulls at Barclays Center, they sealed their fate early in Sunday’s 116-104 home loss to the Lakers with one of their worst quarters of the season.
“They threw the first punch,” Trendon Watford said. “The first few punches, honestly.”
The Lakers led,
15-0, just four minutes in. Anthony
Davis, who finished with 24 points and 14 rebounds, already scored six points by then while the Nets started 0-8.
The Nets’ first points of the game did not come until the 5:39 mark of the first quarter, a tough layup by Nic Claxton, at an awkward angle, over the outstretched arms of Davis. The Nets started 0-for-11. They trailed the Lakers 17-2, then 19-2, then 24-4 by the 4:42 mark thanks to the dominant play of Davis and LeBron James.
“I keep telling them, we’re just not good enough to have quarters like that and overcome that every time,” interim coach Kevin Ollie said.
“You can’t get down by 20 points against this team, they’re just too talented, they just have too many guys that can create their own shot and they played very, very well tonight.”
The Bucks and Hornets own the record for the lowest-scoring quarter by any NBA team this season at nine points. The Nets narrowly avoided that embarrassment with 11 first-quarter points. But trailing the Lakers 31-11 after 12 minutes was embarrassing enough, honestly.
The Lakers scored just as many transition points (11) as the Nets did total points in the quarter. And Davis outscored the home team single-handedly with 13 points.
The Nets fought back for a moment. They trimmed what was a 20-point deficit entering the second quarter to 12 with 6:26 left in the half. Claxton started to assert himself inside with six straight points during the run.
But the combined efforts of Davis and the Lakers proved to be too much. One of D’Angelo Russell‘s four 3-pointers pushed the Lakers’ lead back to 20 with 2:24 left in the half, then a James layup through traffic in the final seconds of the quarter made it a 67-44 game at halftime.
While most of the third quarter was a snoozer in favor of the Lakers, the Nets did end the period on a 14-5 run, fueled by Thomas and Watford to make it an 11-point game entering the final frame. Then Thomas knocked down a trey on the Nets’ first possession of the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to eight.
“We had a spark to end the third, and then starting the fourth, we had a little spark with me hitting 3s to start off,” Thomas said. “We were getting out in transition, hitting 3s, so it gives me life and it gives the whole team life because we were cutting into the lead, we were down a lot almost the whole game.”
However, despite Thomas’ best efforts to shoot the Nets back into the game, James would not tolerate a Lakers collapse on his watch. He scored 17 of his game-high 40 points in the fourth quarter, including nine straight to start the period.