Nets’ LeVert, Dinwiddie face returns to Michigan
Hard as it is to believe, the lastplace Nets actually got complacent after winning three of four. In Tuesday’s loss, the Nets were caught sleeping on the 76ers, and they don’t plan to make the same mistake Thursday when visiting the Pistons in suburban Detroit.
“We don’t have the luxury of looking past teams, especially with the year that we’ve had,’’ rookie Caris LeVert said. “I know we have a lot of winners on this team despite the record we have, but like I said, we don’t have the capacity to overlook teams like that. We can’t do that in the future.
“For sure, every game is a learning experience, especially losses; so we’ll look to have better energy coming out in Detroit.”
After going winless in February, the Nets had won seven games in March. It shows how unaccustomed they were to even a modicum of success that it went to their heads. But such is youth.
“I definitely think that’s easy to point to,’’ Spencer Dinwiddie said. “We’re a young team. Knowing the character of our guys I wouldn’t pin it solely on that. I think it’s a combination of a lot of factors.
“Being a good team and taking that next step, those factors shouldn’t matter. … But when you do have a younger team, a team that has struggled, then the factors tend to matter.”
For both LeVert and Dinwiddie, playing in the Palace of Auburn Hills will be a first-ever homecoming — although they both left home under very different circumstances.
LeVert, who helped lead Michigan to the NCAA Championship game in 2013 and the outright Big Ten regular-season title in 2014, is returning home as the favored son.
Dinwiddie, on the other hand, was drafted by the Pistons in 2014, but saw his playing time slashed the next season. He spent much of that campaign in the D-League before being shipped to Chicago last offseason and subsequently waived.
“Yeah, this is my first time back at the Palace as a visitor. That will definitely hold its own special thing, for sure,’’ Dinwiddie said. “We got a big win against them here, and we look to try to do it again on their home floor, because they’re still fighting for a playoff spot. They’re right in the thick of it and we’re trying to be some spoilers right now.”
Having beaten the Pistons twice in Brooklyn this season, a win Thursday would give the Nets their first season sweep of Detroit since 2012-13.
“[After beating] the team that drafted you, traded you, I was a little bit happy,” Dinwiddie said after last week’s win. “Of course [it meant extra]. … I love everybody in the organization, it’s just great to beat them.”
Now Dinwiddie said he’s hoping for an encore Thursday.
“Like I said after we beat them here, it does hold a [special meaning]. It’s a little bit extra. It’s not so much extra that I’m going to run out there like my head’s on fire,’’ Dinwiddie said.
“Yeah for sure. It’ll definitely be special playing close to where I went to school,’’ said LeVert, who hasn’t played in the state since his collegiate finale on Feb. 13, 2016, when he returned from injury with an 11-minute cameo in a 61-56 win over Purdue at Crisler Arena. “[I expect] a lot of my old teammates, maybe 15.”