It’s no secret that the Brooklyn Nets have been playing well. In addition to being 6-1 since the deliberately chosen date of November 23, the day following a devastating overtime defeat to the Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn also has the greatest net rating in the NBA. Only the two above were afraid about the schedule.The two Florida teams that Brooklyn played, both hurt and playing back-to-back, were the 500 teams.
Nevertheless, the Nets usually dominated and didn’t merely play the player in front of them.
However, Brooklyn wouldn’t benefit from the timetable for very long. They were only playing the first game of a five-game West Coast run against contenders (as well as the Utah Jazz) when they traveled to Sacramento on Monday night to play the Kings. With a 12-9 record going into SacTown, the Nets fans had reason to celebrate. However, their time in the West has the capacity to either maintain the positive emotions or alter the perspective.
Though Brooklyn will have to make up for it during the next four games of their road trip, it still does. The Nets’ night on Monday was anything but positive as they witnessed basket after basket from above. Though it’s unclear if Brooklyn could have stopped Sacaramento’s offensive, the Kings broke a franchise record for 3-pointers made.
Sacramento Kings 131, Brooklyn Nets 118 is the final score.
Even though they have a rather modest record, the Brooklyn Nets have surprised a lot of people this season. Not what many pundits, myself included, expected was a top-tier offense paired with a bottom-third defense. However, the opening of the game on Monday night at Golden 1 Center is what many of us imagined as training camp began.
With everyone and everything to blame, Brooklyn’s offense sputtered in the first half, shooting only 12 of 30 from outside the arc. Cam Thomas only made one of his seven shots, scoring three points, while Mikal Bridges missed a few layups and turned the ball over three times. With 11 points, Spencer Dinwiddie took the lead, but even with his impressive output, he was mostly at the free throw line, shooting just 3 of 10 from the field.
Sacramento’s defense was praised by Jacque Vaughn for “their ability to kind of climb into us.” The level of aggression both on and off the basketball court, where players filled in spaces and made our angles slightly difficult to read, was excellent. You could see that in the first half, I believe, from a few fumbles and deflected balls.
The Nets made five of twelve three-pointers, which is a respectable percentage. Sacramento, on the other hand, was able to fire them up at will and couldn’t miss from deep. The Kings started the game 11–20 from three, and the majority of their baskets came from feeling rather than from a defensive lapse of any kind:
Malik Monk scored 14 points off the bench by doing what he does. On his way to 11/9/5, Domantas Sabonis even added a three.
With all of that, you would assume the Nets were lost. However, Brooklyn quickly shut down one of the most formidable offenses in the NBA and made the Kings shoot a dismal 8 of 26 from outside the arc.
Four of the eight turnovers committed by the Kings were caused by Sabonis, and the Nets, behind Day’Ron Sharpe (plus seven in the first half) and Dorian Finney-Smith (two blocks), shut down the paint:
In all honesty, Brooklyn’s reserve front court kept them in the game. Though Sharpe’s six rebounds and two points didn’t stand out, his defensive play was impressive. Though they didn’t blow the world apart, Royce O’Neale and Finney-Smith made crucial shots to keep the Kings from doing so. In the first half, they each scored ten points.
Sacramento gained a 15-point advantage in the second quarter as a result, but by halftime, that margin had dropped to 54-48. Anyone could win this game.
After Thomas’ first 3-pointer of the game, Brooklyn appeared to be gaining control several times in the third quarter, narrowing the advantage to 71-67. However, the Nets were unable to combine huge baskets with stops that changed momentum. Four times during the quarter, the black-and-white team trimmed the deficit to two possessions but then promptly let up a Kings basket.
The dam broke then. The Nets’ offense faltered for an excessive amount of time when the Kings set the 3-point shooting dial to 100. With a combined 29 points in the quarter, Keegan Murray and De’Aaron Fox put on a show, putting the score at 98-85 going into the fourth quarter. It was exactly the Kings-Nets matchup we could have anticipated going into tonight: a 44-37 halftime advantage for the home club.
It looked like the game was over. After three quarters, Sacramento was not only shooting an absurd 57.5% from outside the arc, but the Nets were also missing layups and making mistakes at crucial times, making it difficult for them to gain momentum.
With less than nine minutes remaining, down 107-90, the push eventually materialized. Leading the way, Mikal Bridges scored three 3-pointers in a row to give the Nets a ___ lead for the game. Although he had previously had trouble making his shot, in the closing seconds he took action on his own:
For Brooklyn, however, a six-point deficit (110–104) was as near as they would go since they were in too deep of a hole. They made excellent three-pointers, but not with very high volume (14-of-29, 48.3%). In the meantime, the Kings achieved a blistering 55.6%, setting a franchise record with 25 makes on 45 tries.
Vaughn said that Brooklyn made every effort: “You give them credit, we weren’t in drop coverage all night, so we were in man.” We were human, and they continued to act like that. For example, during the first two Monk threes, we were human.
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