“Defense wins championships” is a cliché as old as you’ll find in sports. That might stem from older fans clinging to the way the game used to be played. It might just be because it sounds tough, and makes
you sound smart. Sometimes, like last year, it’s just god’s honest truth.
I don’t think think the Nets will win a championship this year, but it did help them beat the Toronto Raptors tonight.
Most positive conversations around the Nets lately have started at the defensive end, and that’s not just because they only scored 95 points on Thursday. In the month of December, Brooklyn’s posted the second best defensive rating in the league. The defending champs are the only team they trail, no pun intended.
It’s easy to scoff at a stat like that for a team with only seven wins. At the end of the day, the number that matters most is the one in the win column. However, the Nets wasted little time proving their defensive datum legitimate this evening, holding the Raptors to 39 first half points, their fewest allowed in a half all season. It started in the first period when the Nets came away with five steals and forced Toronto to shoot just 7-18 from the field.
Brooklyn also flipped the script at the other end in the first, specifically on Toronto. Despite the Raptors being a top five team in transition points per game this season, the Nets outscored them on the break 9-0 in the opening frame. Much of it started at the defensive and with Noah Clowney…
All those live ball turnovers Brooklyn forced set the Nets up for many of those points, but Nolan Traoré did too. It was only natural that the member of the Flatbush Five known for his speed was a major contributor in Brooklyn’s fast break offense, throttling the offense forward in the period’s latter half like a french sports car. The Brooklyn Bugatti, if you will, made the most of his first period burn with Drake Powell out.
Traoré even nailed a deep triple and rejected a driving Immanuel Quickly a few minutes later — two plays which felt far beyond his range in more ways than one less than a month ago…
Evidenced by the above, Traoré stayed in to begin the second, where the Nets led 24-18. An 8-0 Raptor run to begin the second gave Toronto a quick lead, but the Nets recovered quickly, even without Nic Claxton, who had to exit and receive stitches after taking a shot to the face.
Often working around Day’Ron Sharpe screens, Michael Porter Jr. just kept doing what he does to keep the Nets ahead — scoring on the interior, exterior, and still doing it more efficiently than almost everyone expected him to this season.
MPJ poured in 10 points in the second period while shooting 3-5 from the field and 2-4 from deep. He led all scorers at half with 17 points along with two assists, four rebounds, and a steal. The Nets went into the break with a 49-39 advantage…
Clowney and Porter Jr. scored Brooklyn’s first 11 points of the third to match Toronto’s output during its first six and a half minutes. Ja’Kobe Walter must’ve missed the clips I posted earlier of the former’s rim defense earlier in the game, because he tried to end Clowney’s existence at one point in the period.
Well, that, or get revenge for his rejected teammates. If that’s the case, he had as much luck as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, coincidentally losing to the big guy wearing black…
But the fun for Brooklyn in that period ended there. Whatever turnover bug Torono had picked up eventually proved itself to be contagious. The Nets matched their entire turnover output for the first half in the third alone with nine giveaways.
That opened the door for Toronto to come back into the game, and in the final minutes of the third, Quickley kicked it down, splashing two quick triple that capped off an 11-o run for the Raptors to close the quarter. That made it a two point game entering the fourth.
Then, just seconds into that frame, Quickley created two quick buckets for Jamison Battle and Collin Murray-Boyles that gave Toronto its first lead since the second period.
After the scoreboard flashed Toronto’s advantage and a shouting, smiling Immanuel Quickley, the guys from up north looked ready to truly own the first day of winter.
However, Egor Dëmin is from Russia — where the winter bites harder. His blood runs just as cold. Much like in the Boston game, he calmly knocked down a handful of shots, silencing the moment and pushing the Nets back out in front…
Brooklyn then reinflated its lead to 13 points with 4:42 to go via a 16-2 run, started by Dëmin’s first three of the period.
With win No. 8 within reach, the Nets still valued their rebuild down the stretch, closing with a lineup that featured their rookie ball-handers in Dëmin and Troaré up top. Danny Wolf even logged some late minutes, assisting on Dëmin’s third three of the period, before Toronto waived the white flag with about two to go.
The Raptors, even with veterans like Scottie Barnes and Ingram on the floor, simultaneously went scoreless for seven minutes.
Coming into tonight, the Raptors looked like the tree the seed that is the Brooklyn Nets will hope to grow into next year. They’re a winning team, built on the backs of young talent and salary dumped players who are now (almost) justifying their contracts. That’s exactly want to be, and what they’re building with.
But tonight, they beat them. Perhaps the seed is growing faster than we expected.
Final: Brooklyn Nets 96, Toronto Raptors 81
Injury Report
Pregame, Jordi Fernández provided a couple of updates on injured Nets, one short and one long. On Drake Powell, who on Thursday sprained his right ankle for the third time this season, but was walking around postgame without crutches, a boot, or a noteworthy limp: “Yeah, not concerned. He’ll be back soon.”
And on Cam Thomas, who missed his 19th straight game with a left hamstring injury: “CT is doing great. He had his 5-on-5 yesterday, looked really good. And he’s going to continue to do that until we feel he’s ready to go. Big part of the non-contact with the rest of the team. Like I said, played a 5-on-5, and it’s just a matter of when. We’re not targeting a specific date, but we want to see how he feels, and then go to the next session, see how he feels, and then keep building from there.”
Next Up
The Nets will head south for their third game of the season against the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday evening. Brooklyn failed to pull in a win against Philly in either of their first two contests, which were both held at the Barclays Center. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. EST.
