Though Cam Johnson, dealing with a knee injury, could not make his return to Barclays Center on Sunday afternoon, the Brooklyn Nets and Denver Nuggets still had much catching up to do before the matinee contest.
Bruce Brown reunited with Mr. Whammy, and Nuggets Head Coach David Adelman shared his admiration for Michael Porter Jr., both on and, yes, off the court: “I miss the conversation. I think a lot of people are scared to be themselves nowadays. Mike is not. People scoff at that sometimes because
maybe they’re scared to say what they actually think. Mike’s gonna say it, whether you agree with him or not.”
Likewise, Jordi Fernández was full of compliments for Jamal Murray, whom he coached in both Denver and for Canada’s national team. With Nikola Jokić on the shelf, the pregame talk centered on Murray, averaging 28/5/7 over his last ten games: “I know they have some guys out, but we’re gonna have to focus on the gameplan, especially — it starts with Jamal Murray, who is a very, very good player.”
On the very first possession of the game, the switch-heavy Nets sprung a surprise trap on Murray to force a turnover, a sign of things to come. In the first half, Murray managed just five points on five shots, and though he had eight assists, Brooklyn’s defensive pressure forced him into four turnovers…
Day’Ron Sharpe, in his second straight start, continued to impress. He jumped passing lanes, hit cutters, and finished with a robust 17/6/4/3/1 line.
“He did great things on both ends,” said Jordi Fernández. “He was the anchor defensively today, from the beginning with those blitzes with Jamal. He was awesome.”
The offensive anchor, then, would have been Michael Porter Jr., who scored 16 of his 27 points in the first half. Denver attempted to apply the same level of pressure to him that Jamal Murray was facing, but found much less success. The Nets turned it over just five times the first half, and though MPJ didn’t find a shot attempt for a few minutes, you knew that wouldn’t last long…
David Adelman’s comments soon proved true. Postgame, MPJ was an open book: “I think I mentioned in the summertime at some point that I was excited for that first matchup against them, really, since I’ve been traded and just how that whole thing kind of went down … I probably felt a little bit more nervous for this one than a lot of other games, so it was fun.”
Brooklyn took a 59-52 lead into halftime despite Ziaire Williams hitting a 65-foot chuck that was waved off…
…but his swish kickstarted momentum. The Nets shot 8-of-15 from three in the second half, as MPJ’s teammates all got in on the action.
Egor Demin hit three triples to finish with 13/4/4, Noah Clowney went 4-of-6 from range to score 20 points, and Ziaire Williams finished with 13 points, his third straight game in double figures. The final score was inflated by some late-game fouling and pressing from Denver, but make no mistake: This offense steamrolled.
Fernández agreed: “I think we spaced the floor well, that’s good to see … It’s good to have different guys scoring, because that tells you that you’re hard to guard. So, great for our guys trying to make that simple play. We shot 15 corner threes, which is a lot of them, and that’s a good sign.”
Cam Thomas showed off the full deck on Sunday. In 11 first half minutes, Denver blitzed him out of the game; he put up 0/0/0 with one shot attempt. Thomas, though, scored 17 after the break, shooting 5-of-9. Was he proving a point that Jordi Fernández and the Nets do, in fact, need him to score?
Fernández didn’t see it that way postgame: “I thought those two halves were like — he needed to. He did the right thing for the team in the first half, passing the ball on the blitzes. He was aggressive and scored in the second. So, it’s a perfect balance.”
Though missing Nikola Jokić, Cam Johnson, and backup center Jonas Valančiūnas, the Nuggets provided impressive individual performances. Jamal Murray would finish with an impressive, odd-looking 27/6/16 stat line; he didn’t turn it over in the first half. Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun finally returned from medium-term injury absences. Peyton Watson scored 23 points, and Tim Hardaway Jr. added 26 off the bench. But they were never the more impressive team.
The injured Nuggets were on the fifth game of a grueling seven-game road trip. Brooklyn isn’t going anywhere this season. Even the rookies outside of Dëmin didn’t do much (Wolf, Powell and Traore combined for 12 points). And yet, Jordi Fernández’s followed up their tank-off in Washington with another convincing win. The Nets have a winning record since the start of December.
Maybe we don’t have to squint too hard to see the vision. Maybe we can just look.
Final Score: Brooklyn Nets 127, Denver Nuggets 115
