TOUGH ENOUGH
Lin-less Nets gut out win over Lakers
The Nets won a game with defense and toughness Wednesday.
Honest. There’s no punch line here. No, “Three Nets, a nun and a Labrador Retriever walk into a bar…”
The Nets, who entered again without Jeremy Lin and as the league’s worst defensive team in terms of points allowed, held the equally young, equally struggling, equally hungry Lakers to just 21 fourth-quarter points and emerged with a 107-97 victory at Barclays Center.
“Any time you’re more physical than the other team, you’ve got a great chance of winning,” said Trevor Booker, who led the toughness aspect with a seasonhigh 18 rebounds as the Nets held a 61-49 mastery on the glass.
“I really liked our defense in the fourth quarter,” said coach Kenny Atkinson, who announced just before tipoff that Lin was suffering from lower back tightness. “If we’re going to take a step, that’s where we need to take a step, defensively.
“And in the end, we rebounded better. They got a few but we were more physical. Just in general we were a more physical ball club.”
And while the defense got lots of raves — hey, the Nets rarely get to feel pumped about de- fense and usually hear things like they couldn’t guard a closed door — there were some reasons to be pumped about the offense, too. Like three 20-point scorers in Bojan Bogdanovic (23), Sean Kilpatrick (22) and Brook Lopez (20).
“It was a great job, especially defensively,” Bogdanovic said.
Lopez was huge in the fourth quarter when he scored eight of his points, all in the final 6:47.
“We just stayed together and just kept our concentration and focus. There were a lot of ups and downs and we really weren’t at our best the entirety of the game but we fought through it,” Lopez said.
Actually, neither team was at its best. The Nets shot .384 but made up for a lot of their woes with those 61 rebounds. The Lakers who just couldn’t sustain anything in losing their eighth straight game, shot .385. Lou Williams led six Lakers in double-figures with 16 points.
“Blowing opportunities,” said Lakers coach Luke Walton, who was fined $15,000 by the league earlier in the day for ripping the officials and failing to leave the court in a timely fashion after a Monday ejection against the Kings. “We had a ton of good looks that just didn’t go in.”
The Nets found help in all corners in trying to overcome the loss of Lin who was expected to play for the first time at home since Nov. 2. He had returned from a 17-game hamstring strain absence Monday but was scratched pregame.
So Isaiah Whitehead, again starting at point guard, saved his best for the fourth quarter. He scored six of his eight points and added both of his assists in the fourth. He set up Lopez inside for one assist and then found Joe Harris in the right corner for an open 3pointer at 4:47 in what may have been the game’s biggest shot. Harris hit that 3 and the Nets led, 102-94.
“The first one, Brook was wide open I just had to reward him,” Whitehead said of the Lopez layup at 5:17 that ended a personal six-point Nets run by the center. “The second, Randy Foye on the bench told me, ‘When you come off the screens they’re coming into Brook so much the opposite side is wide open.’ ”
So Whitehead looked, saw Harris wide open and passed.
“So when I looked he was wide open and I just hit him,” Whitehead said.
“A heckuva kick-out pass to the corner for that 3. I don’t even know how he made that pass,” Atkinson said. He did. And Harris was ready. “I got myself squared up. It’s one of those you’ve got to take,” Harris said. “Isaiah drew everybody in and was able to get it up over the top.
“But we won with our defense. That is a huge step for us.”
And that’s no joke.