Brooklyn Boro

Nets winless in February as All-Star break approaches

Drop 6th straight this month in 114-101 loss to L.A. Clippers

February 13, 2018 By John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Brooklyn head coach Kenny Atkinson is hoping for a better start from his team on Valentine’s Day as the slumping Nets have been outscored by an average of 10 points in the opening quarter of each of their last five games. AP Photo by Kathy Willens
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To paraphrase a Yogi-ism, it’s getting late awful early for the slumping Brooklyn Nets.

Our borough’s NBA franchise continued its February malaise and penchant for slow starts with a brutal 114-101 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday night in front of 13,735 paying customers at Downtown’s Barclays Center.

The Nets (19-39), who dropped to 0-6 this month, keep getting behind early in games, then climbing back into contention, only to suffer the indignity of falling short night after night.

Brooklyn, which has trailed by at least 20 points in a game 20 times this season, including a whopping 28 in Saturday night’s double-overtime home loss to New Orleans, has lost 10 of 11 overall, by far its worst stretch of the campaign.

“It seems like lately we’ve been digging ourselves holes and you can’t beat teams in the NBA when you’re trying to overcome 20-point deficits,” said Joe Harris after matching D’Angelo Russell with a team-high 16 points off the bench.

“The other night it was 28, like you just can’t fall into holes like that and expect to come back and try to win games,” he added. “It takes too much energy, first of all, to crawl your way back in, and this is kind of getting repetitive at this point.”

The Nets are winless since a Jan. 31 victory against Philadelphia here, and will have one more shot at snapping out of their slide before the All-Star break at Barclays on Valentine’s Day vs. Indiana.

There is no doubt that the absences of injured regulars Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (groin) and Caris LeVert (knee) have left head coach Kenny Atkinson shorthanded during this miserable stretch.

But the Nets’ inability to put together anything resembling a strong start is becoming habitual as they have been outscored by an average of 10 points per contest in the opening 12 minutes of their last five games.

“Obviously, we’re all frustrated right now. It’s a tough time,” Atkinson admitted of the team’s longest losing streak this season.

“This is a tough stretch we’re going through, but we have one more game before the All-Star break. I told the guys, let’s put our energy into getting one against Indiana. A good Indiana team, but we’re at home. It would be a good thing for our morale to get one before the All-Star break, so we go in with some positive feelings.”

Feelings aside, the Nets are in dire need of a positive result on the scoreboard.

Most of the progress they’ve made this season, and there certainly has been some, could go for naught if Brooklyn doesn’t recover from this epic slide, which is still well shy of the 16-game skid it endured last year at this time.

“Now, I think our guys are fatigued, just like everybody in the NBA is fatigued,” Atkinson ceded.

“Obviously, we’ve been playing some guys big minutes lately,” he added. “Double overtime game, big minutes, and tonight again we had to play some guys big minutes and I think we’re a little fatigued, but somehow we have to find the energy. Get our juices for Indiana.”

Allen Crabbe scored 15 points on 6-of-13 shooting, Spencer Dinwiddie had 13 points and eight assists and DeMarre Carroll added 12 points and 10 rebounds for Brooklyn, which fell behind 34-22 after one quarter of play.

The Nets did cut the deficit to nine on Crabbe’s 3-pointer with just under two minutes left in the half, but never seriously threatened Los Angeles thereafter as the Clippers spread the wealth with seven players reaching double figures in scoring.

Lou Williams poured in a game-high 20 points and DeAndre Jordan dominated the interior with 16 points and 17 rebounds for the Clippers (29-26), who improved to 4-1 since dealing away star forward Blake Griffin to Detroit.

“We couldn’t stop them,” Atkinson admitted. “We never found a solution to stopping them. They got downhill on us. We knew we had to keep them out of the paint and we never did. That was the story of the game. We couldn’t stop them.”

Nothing But Net: Russell, who is still in a reserve role since returning from a two-month absence due to an early season knee injury, believes the upcoming All-Star break could help the struggling Nets. “A break is always good,” he said. “It will give us time to debrief, reflect on what we need to do. Getting our habits and our routines to finish off the season strong. It definitely could be beneficial for us.” He also weighed in on the Nets’ inability to get off to strong starts of late. “A lot can go into it,” he noted. “Missed shots, defense, a lot can go into it. It’s something as a collective group we’ve got to figure out and try to change it before next game.” … Atkinson confirmed that neither Hollis-Jefferson nor LeVert would play against Indiana Wednesday, and that both players would be re-evaluated following the All-Star break. Brooklyn will visit Charlotte on Feb. 22 in its first game following the NBA’s annual weekend hiatus before hosting Chicago here on Feb. 26.

 

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