Brooklyn Boro

NBA Champs run away from slumping Nets

Warriors teach Brooklyn a lesson in closing out with late surge

March 7, 2018 By John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Stephen Curry rises for two of his game-high 34 points Tuesday night as the NBA champion Golden State Warriors used a big second half to cruise past the slumping Brooklyn Nets in Oakland. AP Photo by Jeff Chiu
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The Nets spent the first three games of this five-game road trip lamenting missed opportunities and their inability to close out opponents.

Tuesday night in Oakland, they got a firsthand view of what a team that knows how to put opponents away looks like.

After toying with Brooklyn for the better part of two and a half quarters, the reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors pulled away from the slumping Nets en route to a 114-101 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 19,596 at ORACLE Arena.

D’Angelo Russell scored 22 points and DeMarre Carroll added 19 for Brooklyn, which held a 53-48 halftime advantage but was ultimately undone when Golden State went on a 22-5 tear spanning the third and fourth quarters.

“[The game got away in the] third quarter,” Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson said after his slumping squad fell to 0-4 on this trip, which concludes Thursday night in Charlotte.

Brooklyn, which had suffered last-minute losses in Cleveland, Sacramento and Los Angeles before dropping in on the Warriors, held Golden State to just 13 points in the second quarter before the champs came storming back to snag their 50th victory of the season.

“That’s what they do, I think they have the biggest scoring margin [in the NBA] in the third quarter,” said Atkinson, whose team has lost four in a row and 12 of its last 13 overall.

“We come out and make a few mistakes defensively and they go on a 9-2 run and score 38 in the third quarter. Otherwise, I thought we did a decent job throughout the game.”

Stephen Curry scored 34 points and Kevin Durant added 19 for the Warriors, who will be vying for their third NBA title in four years come spring while the Nets will miss out on the postseason for the third consecutive campaign.

 

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