The Nets’ first game with their young foundation trio in the starting lꦐineup didn’t go as hoped. Two struggled, a third got hurt and in the end the Nets lost for the eighth straight time.
It took the Nets just four minutes to dig ♔themselves a double-digit deficit, one that nearly doubled in the third quarter. They spent the rest of the night trying to climb uphill, only to stumble and fall in the end, 106-97 to Indiana in front of 14,557 at Barclays Center on Friday.
“It’s not for lack of effort or lack of trying, but we have to really get over that hump. It’s just g🥂oing to take all of us being on the same page, working and believing we can do it in the last five or three minutes of the game,’’ said Brook Lopez, whose team-high 23 points went to waste. “The big thing is you’ve just got to believe. Whatever the score is, you’ve got to believe you’ve got a chance.
“You’ve got to keep working whatever the situation is. You can’t have quit. … Yeah, it’s possible [doubt has crept in]. But you can’t have that attitude. You’ve got to know if you’re going in there and you’re on the court you’ve got to give yourself a chance, and you’ve got to believe you can have it. Its simply having confidence and going out there and doing it.”
The Nets g꧃ave first-round pick Caris LeVert his first NBA start, in the lineup with 🐓fellow rookie Isaiah Whitehead and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. Whitehead left the game hurt after a collision early in the third quarter while the other two combined for eight points on 2-of-11 shooting. All three got roughed up physically.
“Getting three young guys going against veteran guys, they’re a physical team,’’ coach Kenny Atkinson said.♈ “I don’t think we handled their physicality well.”
After falling behind 14-4, they trailed b𒁃y 19 points in the third quarter. They did mount an extended 37-16 run to take their first lead midwജay through the fourth. But they couldn’t hold on, falling to 9-41, still the only team in the NBA with fewer than 15 wins.
Paul George (23 points and 11 reboun💃ds) and Jeff Teague (24 points, seven assists) made plays down the stretch, as Indiana improved to 27-22.
“They just came out the aggressor. We didn’t come out the way they did,’’ said Whitehead, adding his shoulder was fine. “They jumped on us quick, and a veteran team like that you’ve got to be ready for everythin🎃g, the blitz the one part of the game we had to be ready for them.”
Clearly. Th💮e Nets fell behind by 10 points just 3:59 in on a jumper by George. They missed six of their first seven shots, and commiꦓtted three turnovers, the young lineup looking skittish and jittery.
The deficit was still 27-16 after a first quarter that saw them shoot just🦩 25 percent from the floor, including 1-of-7 from behind the 3-point arc. It was 56-46 after at the half, and got worse when Whitehead was forced out of the game just 1:41 into the second half.
He stayed down after a collision, and eventually walked off un♛der 🥀his own power. He had his shoulder checked on the bench and did not return, finishing scoreless in 14 minutes. He missed a stirring comeback.
After🃏 the Nets coughed up 11 straight points, with a Thad Young floater giving Indiana a 67-48 lead with 8:25 left in the third.
But Brooklyn ꧒then stormed back, scoring nine straight points. Trevor Booker kicked out to Spencer Dinwiddie for a 3-pointer to cap the run. It sliced what had been a 19-point deficit to six, 73-67, with 3:04 left in the third. Quincy Acy drilled back-🥃to-back 3-pointers to put the Nets ahead 85-83, their first lead of the night.
Brooklyn still lead 87-85 on LeVert’s free throws with 7:57 to play, but after a 3𓆏-pointer by C.J. Miles and a pair of free throws by Myles Turner, they never led again.
Sean Kilpatrick finished with 18 points𓃲 and Joe Harris had 15.
꧙“It’d be a lot easier if we weren’t digging ourselves 19-point holes, or having these moments where we’reℱ give up really long runs and don’t counter people’s runs,’’ Harris said.