Missing in action
Nets can't repeat their upset magic, stall out early in decisive loss to Nuggets
The Nets pulled off a mile-high upset a week ago in Denver; but in Sunday’s rematch they got floored early and never got up off the mat.
Brooklyn trailed essentially wire-to-wire in a 108-102 loss to the Nuggets, dropping its third straight before a crowd of 18,235 at Barclays Center.
Down by as many as 22 points, the Nets got battered on the boards, shredded on defense and thoroughly outworked before a late run that was purely cosmetic.
“Yeah, overall you see the start of the game,” Jacque Vaughn said. “On our road trip we had great energy, great juice, and somehow we’ve come home and lacked a little bit of energy and juice to start the game.
“It happened versus [Sacramento] and happened again [Sunday]. So the starts of the game are important for us just for confidence-wise, just for setting the tone. And early on they were the aggressors, and they set the tone of the game.”
The tone was the Nets (39-32) being outmuscled and outhustled. They allowed 52.5 percent shooting and 12 of 23 from deep. And despite keeping players back to crash the defensive glass and sacrifice the fast break, they were outrebounded 40-33.
Nikola Jokic had a dominant triple-double with 22 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists. He flashed his preternatural passing, that trademarked push floater and a bruising physicality that the Nets couldn’t match.
Jokic de-cleated Cam Johnson and sent the spindly forward to the court in the final seconds of a first half that saw the Nets trail 63-48 at the break.
Things didn’t get any better for them in the second.
Michael Porter Jr. had a gamehigh 28 points, and Jamal Murray added 25 and eight assists. His 3-pointer off a Jokic pass put the Nets in an early 25-12 hole from which they never recovered.
“I don’t know. They went off. They started off strong,” Mikal Bridges said. “Personally I take a lot of blame, because I was just poor on the defensive end. Obviously I was missing shots early, but that comes with the game. Just missing, that’s just part of it; but I can control playing defense.
“So that’s what messed me up right now, and that’s on me. I’ve just got to be more locked in on that side of the ball. If you’re messing up, and you’ve got four guys out there and one guy’s messing up, it’s going to be tough, especially against a real good team like Denver. Everybody else was pretty much good; I’ve just got to be better for sure.”
Falling on the proverbial sword aside, Bridges led the Nets with 23 points. Nic Claxton added 19 and eight boards. But Johnson and Seth Curry were the only other Nets in double figures, with Curry having nine of his 12 in the garbage-time fourth quarter and the Johnson shooting just 1 of 6 from deep.
“The frustrating thing is just when they don’t go in,” Johnson said. “They felt good, I’m sure everyone thought they felt good; they’re just not going in right now. I can only speak on myself personally, but that’s life as a basketball player. If it was easy, everybody would be shooting 3s and making them. You’ve got to weather storms and continue to shoot; but it’s tough because we had a lot of good looks.”
The Nets trailed by two touchdowns early, after ex-Net Bruce Brown found Reggie Jackson for a floater that made it 37-23 with 10:45 left in the opening half.
The Nets mounted a 15-5 run, with Claxton’s free throw pulling them within 42-38 midway through the second quarter. But that’s as close as they got.
Murray — who’d left Brooklyn’s 122-120 win a week ago with a knee injury — pushed it to 63-46 on a midrange step back with 29 seconds left in the half.
The deficit swelled to 98-76 with 7:52 to play, and only a late 26-10 run to close the game made it respectable.