Nets top Magic
Brook Lopez gave the Nets a dominant performance on his birthday. They gave him a sound team win, thanks to Trevor Booker and the bench.
After looking complacent in losses to Philadelphia and Detroit, the Nets brought back the grit with a 121-111 victory over Orlando in front of 15,976 at Barclays Center. They drove the ball at will, saw their bench shred the Magic and claim they’re determined to play hard to the finish.
“It was very important, very big,” said Lopez, who had 30 points and seven boards on his 29th birthday. “We continually talked about no slippage until the very end of the season ... but we want to continue to improve and take every opportunity we can to get better as a team.”
Lopez was the only Nets starter to break double-figures. But their bench broke Orlando (27-50), outscoring the Magic reserves 72-16. Trevor Booker had a seasonhigh 23 points and eight boards and teamed with Spencer Dinwiddie to score every point in an 11-0 run that snapped an 89-all tie going into the fourth.
“That second group came in, everybody was playing with energy and got each other going,” Booker said. “We just had it rolling.”
The Nets (17-59) never trailed again, improving to 8-12 since the All-Star break.
“[The reserves] were spectacular, the difference,” said Lopez, who now is just 89 points from surpassing Buck Williams as the team’s alltime leading scorer.
“They played great. They saved us. They saved me,” said Jeremy Lin, who had eight points and eight assists but shot just 3-of-14.
Lin’s greatest contribution may have been imploring his Nets from the start to drive the ball more. The result? They shot 53 percent from the floor and scored a seasonhigh 72 points in the paint, fourth-most in team history since it became a statistic 20 years ago.
It didn’t seem like the Nets’ night early, when Nikola Vucevic (27 points) tried to throw an entry lob in to Aaron Gordon, only to see it bounce off the rim, up and through for a fluke 3-pointer. Gordon’s alley-oop reverse sent the Nets into a timeout down 15-5, and his 3 left them trailing 85-80 with two minutes to go in the third.
An extended 20-4 run gave Brooklyn the lead for good. It was 89-all to start the fourth, when the bench took over. Booker’s hook shot and Dinwidde’s layup made it 93-89. Booker stole a D.J. Augustin pass and went for a coast-tocoast floater to put the Nets ahead by six.
When Jodie Meeks missed, Booker snatched the rebound and passed upcourt, and Dinwiddie made a driving hook shot and ensuing free throw for a 98-89 cushion. The pair combined to cap the run when Booker rebounded Augustin’s miss, pushed it upcourt and kicked back out to Dinwiddie at the arc. The guard dropped it back inside to Booker for a floater and a 100-89 lead the Nets made stand up.
“We definitely want to finish the season strong,” Booker said. “It’ll give us something to build off of over the summer going into next season.”