Nets hang on to beat Pels in OT
It took an extra period to decide Nets vs. Pelicans on Tuesday night, but the Nets were able to pull out the victory with a 108-101 overtime win in New Orleans.
Spencer Dinwiddie continued his scoring surge in the Big Easy, scoring 31 points on 11- of-26 shooting from the field. It was Dinwiddie’s fifth consecutive game with at least 24 points and his eighth in Brooklyn’s last 11 games.
“He said in the locker room that Jrue Holiday is probably the best on-ball defender in the league,” head coach Kenny Atkinson said. “That might be one of the toughest matchups for Spencer. Jrue was going at him, but that’s the athlete in Spencer. He kind of shed a lot of that, made a lot of plays and got downhill.”
“In terms of guards that pick you up 94 feet, he’s probably the best at that,” Dinwiddie said, likening Holiday’s defensive effort to that of Kawhi Leonard.
Jarrett Allen added 12 points, 14 rebounds and six blocks. Allen recorded four of those blocks in the first quarter, each on Pelicans’ star Brandon Ingram, each at the rim. Joe Harris also added 24 points on 5-of-9 shooting from three.
The win over the Pelicans embodied the grit the Nets pride themselves on. Brooklyn shot just 11-of-39 from three with Dinwiddie, Garrett Temple and Taurean Prince going cold, combining for just 3-of-20 shooting from deep.
Brooklyn had to win this one with their defense in overtime. They held the Pelicans to just eight points while scoring 15 of their own.
“Our defense again saved us and collectively great job on Ingram, great job on Holiday getting their percentages down,” Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson said after the game. “We really had to work for this one.”
“I don’t know how we pulled it out, but we did what we needed to do to get the victory,” Allen added.
This one looked like a snoozer three quarters in. The Pelicans held a 64-61 lead entering the fourth, and up until then, neither team could find the basket. It was the polar opposite of what happened in Brooklyn, when the two teams combined for 260 points in a 10-point wins for the Nets.
Then both teams woke up, when the Nets caught fire and hit four of their first six 3-point attempts in the period.
“Law of averages says some of them are gonna go in,” Dinwiddie said. “They’re going to go in. We have that high level of trust in [Joe and Taurean].”