Kids rally Nets for thrilling home finale
The Nets, bound to finish in NBA cellar, have insisted they are improving and vowed next year will be better. But words are cheap. Their fight to the finish — including Saturday’s thrilling home finale — is showing they might not be blowing smoke.
The Bulls are playing for the playoffs and the Nets are playing for pride. But it was the Nets that fought back from a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit — and a three-point hole with less than 1:30 left — for a 107-106 win before a sellout crowd of 17,732 at Barclays Center. And best of all, it was their kids that led them.
“It’s fantastic,’’ coach Kenny Atkinson said. “Sellout [crowd], they’ve supported us all year. It makes you emotional. That’s important to us.”
And seeing development is important to those fans, who have suffered through a 20-60 campaign. The Nets are 11-11 since March 1, 4-1 this month, and their youth movement is starting to bear fruit. With Brook Lopez scoring 13 points (leaving him 22 shy of the Nets all-time mark), it was the youngsters that dominated down the stretch against a Jimmy Butler/Dwyane Wadeled Bulls team vying for the last playoff spot in East.
Spencer Dinwiddie (19 points), Caris LeVert (19 points) and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (16 points) — all 24 or younger — were the Nets’ three highest scorers, and combined for every Nets point in a 19-6 run that turned a 97-88 deficit with 4:11 re- maining into a 107-103 lead on Dinwiddie’s free throws with 2.4 seconds left.
“Every player wants to be able to make those kind of plays and seal the deal,’’ said Dinwiddie, who had 12 points in the fourth quarter and seven in the last 1:23.
“I feel like a proud … I don’t want to say like a dad, but like a proud big brother or cousin, just seeing Rondae and Caris and Spencer … with the game on the line and the way they’re doing it,” said Jeremy Lin, who had 12 points, none in the fourth quarter.
Butler (game-high 33 points) and Wade — his wife Gabrielle Union on hand to watch his return from a March 15 fractured elbow — spotted the Bulls a 97-88 lead. But the Nets erased it with 10 unanswered points.
LeVert sandwiched 3s around a Hollis-Jefferson steal. Then consecutive driving layups by Hollis-Jefferson put the Nets ahead, 98-97.
Butler had the Bulls’ next six points, but the Nets didn’t blink. Dinwiddie hit a 3 to knot the score at 101-all, and Hollis-Jefferson added a pair of free throws.
After Butler’s jumper knotted it at 103, Dinwiddie ran a pick-and-roll with Lopez, drew a foul on Wade and untied it at the line with 13.6 to play. And after Lopez’s hard close-out forced Butler to finally miss with 5.4 left, Dinwiddie ran down the rebound and iced it at the stripe.