Dinwiddie leads Nets' rout of 76ers
NETS 109 76ERS 89
The Nets had to wait eight months to renew acquaintances with the team that ended their season last year and took their lunch money while they were at it.
One regular-season game won’t make up for how the 76ers bullied them on the way to a playoff series win last April, but the Nets did the only thing they could Sunday and got the win anyway in emphatic fashion.
Playing the second half of a back-to-back, the Nets took advantage of a Joel Embiid-less 76ers team and came away with a 109-89 victory at Barclays Center. “You always want to beat teams that you may play in the playoffs, but it’s not so much the previous playoff series that we had [that crossed my mind],” said Spencer Dinwiddie, who led the way with 24 points and six assists.
The Nets (14-12) led by as many as 26 — their biggest lead of the season — and the 89 points they allowed were a season-low, limiting the 76ers (20-8) to 5-for-26 shooting from 3 while bringing the physicality that was missing in their playoff series.
“One of our best defensive performances since I’ve been here,” coach Kenny Atkinson said.
But the talk of the postgame locker room was Dinwiddie’s one-handed slam in the face of Tobias Harris that got the crowd and his bench in a frenzy during a third quarter in which the Nets pulled away for good.
Atkinson replayed a clip of the dunk in front of the team after the game, much to Dinwiddie’s delight.
“I was happy to be on the good clip for once,” Dinwiddie said with a grin. “It made me feel like the Grinch when his heart expanded. ’ Tis the season.”
Soon after, the Nets went on 10-0 run that put their lead in double digits for the rest of the night.
Joe Harris added 16 points while DeAndre Jordan delivered 13 points and 11 rebounds.
A night after shooting 38.6 percent — including just 26.1 percent (12-for-46) from 3 — in a 110-102 loss to the Raptors, the Nets shot 45.3 percent and controlled the play inside with Embiid (upper respiratory illness) missing. They outscored the 76ers 64-54 in the paint and out-rebounded them 52-38.
“Embiid was out, but they still have [Al] Horford, Mike Scott, Ben [Simmons], Tobias,” Joe Harris said. “Across the board, they’re very big matchups for everybody. I thought we did a good job just matching their physicality and trying to be the aggressive team the whole night.”
It was the 76ers’ physicality that reigned when they beat the Nets in a feisty five-game playoff series in the first round last season. Sunday’s matchup lacked the same kind of tension — perhaps because the two main players in the drama, Embiid and Jared Dudley, were not in the arena — but the Nets were happy to take the win on tired legs and move on.
With Embiid out, Atkinson had been concerned about the 76ers playing fast behind Simmons (20 points). The game never sped up on the Nets, though, who took a lead with 5:54 left in the first quarter and never let it go.
“Obviously Joel’s a force inside, outside, he can score on every tier of the basketball court,” Jordan said. “But they’re still a great team. They got Al and Mike who can spread the floor, so they’re a little differently when Joel’s out of the game. But we still had to come out with the same mindset as if he was playing, with the same physicality, with the same defensive mindset we came out with.”
Wilson Chandler had played in 656 career games, playoffs included, before Sunday. Only one — his NBA debut — had made him as anxious as this one.
The veteran forward returned from his 25-game suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs to make his Nets debut on Sunday night in a 109-89 win over the 76ers, ending a long waiting game during which he could only sit and watch.
“Every single game, it was kind of like dreadful,” Chandler said.
He liked it much better finally getting involved.
“I was just happy to be out there,” Chandler said after chipping in two points, seven rebounds and two assists in 18:41. “I just wanted to come in and get my rhythm in the midst of the game. Not do too much, just play off my teammates.”
Coach Kenny Atkinson said he wasn’t planning on playing Chandler that much, but a combination of Taurean Prince getting in early foul trouble and Chandler’s strong play gave him no choice.
“He helped by just having that big physical body of his,” Atkinson said. “He guarded Ben [Simmons] in there for a while when [Prince] got in foul trouble. I thought that was a big stretch.”
The 32-year-old Chandler knows there will be rust to knock off, but he and Atkinson were hopeful their familiarity — Atkinson was his personal workout coach when he was a Knick and Atkinson was an assistant — will help smooth the transition.
“I’m just thrilled for him that he’s [back],” Atkinson said. “We supported him. He owned up to a mistake. I knew this day was going to come. It’s going to help the Nets, help him. I keep saying this, I really have a good grip on who he is as a player and that helps you as a coach. I think I understand how to use him. Great guy, so he’s going to help us.”
➤ Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot provided an early spark and recorded season highs of eight points and five assists in 22:59. It came a night after playing 17:23 in Toronto, after playing just 6:02 through the first 24 games of the season.
“He’s been a pleasant surprise these past two games,” Atkinson said.
➤ Atkinson had no updates on the status of Kyrie Irving (shoulder) or Caris LeVert (thumb).