Fool me as soon as, disgrace on you. But idiot me twice? The Nets didn’t learn the way that age-old adage ends.
At least not this time.
The Nets snapped a four-game shedding streak with a 116-109 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Halloween night. It was a a lot wanted, get-right win after the Pacers completely embarrassed the Nets in Saturday’s nine-point loss.
“We’ve got to keep fighting. That’s the biggest thing,” head coach Steve Nash mentioned earlier than the sport. “We can’t take our foot off the gas. I think we did last time out and we’ve got to resist the urge to not have that winning mentality, to be willing to go that extra step for each other.”
And it was a win that was met with a standing ovation from a Barclays Center crowd determined for a high quality efficiency from what has the potential to be a high quality late-season staff if they’ll put all of it collectively.
The victory — Brooklyn’s second of the season in opposition to 5 early losses — didn’t come with out drama: The Nets ran up a 24-point first-half lead that evaporated by the fourth quarter. It turned a two possession sport down the stretch after the Pacers knocked down a flurry of threes.
In reality, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving every missed essential threes down the stretch, to which the Pacers responded with baskets that stored the sport shut. In the tip, Irving iced the sport with a floater and Durant put it out of attain with a pair of free throws.
Durant completed with 36 factors on 13-of-22 capturing from the sphere to go together with 9 rebounds and 7 assists. As a part of his night time, he surpassed Vince Carter for nineteenth place on the NBA’s all-time main scoring listing. Next up for Durant is Kevin Garnett. Garnett’s spot is in danger with lower than 300 factors of separation from Durant, who’s averaging greater than 32 factors per sport to begin the season.
Indiana shot 0-of-12 from downtown within the first interval, then proceeded to mild it up from deep for the remainder of the night time. It appeared like extra of the identical from a Pacers staff two nights faraway from tying the Nets’ all-time file for opponent threes made.
Irving completed with 28 factors on 9-of-19 capturing from the sphere, and beginning heart Nic Claxton had 19 factors, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 blocks.
A bunch of followers have been seen courtside sporting shirts that mentioned “Fight Antisemitism” throughout the sport on Monday night time. The followers sat within the Barclays Center with the shirts two days after Irving was questioned a couple of tweet that shared a documentary stuffed with antisemtic messages.
Sharpshooter Joe Harris began instead of Ben Simmons (left knee soreness) and completed with seven factors and three steals to go together with some scrappy particular person protection.
“He just has a sore knee. That’s all I know really,” Nash mentioned of Simmons. “Tomorrow, we’ll have to monitor and see how he is but tonight he’s out and we’ll see how the knee is tomorrow and if he’s able to go.”
The Pacers obtained 30 from guard Chris Duarte and 22 from wing Buddy Hield however solely shot 11-of-39 from downtown.
And now the Nets are off to the races, shaking the proverbial monkey off their again with a victory in opposition to an opponent they have been imagined to beat. They face a troublesome job within the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday within the second sport of a back-to-back, however the hope is Simmons and possibly even Seth Curry (ankle surgical procedure upkeep) will return to the rotation. Curry additionally missed Monday’s matchup.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com