Coming into this season, exterior taking pictures and rebounding involved the Nets and appeared like Achilles’ heels.
On Tuesday, it was all the pieces else that did them in.
The Nets obtained beat, 127-119, by Philadelphia of their penultimate preseason sport earlier than 14,966 at Barclays Middle.
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It wasn’t their ordinary failings that failed them however, this time, stunning sloppiness.
“I stated to some assistant coaches earlier at present is I actually need this crew to be recognized for enjoying laborious, and that begins now,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn had warned beforehand. “It doesn’t begin versus Cleveland the primary sport of the 12 months.
“So, if we will get our guys to know whether or not you’re taking part in a four-minute stint, an eight-minute stint, to not coast — not to consider the top of the stint however to play that extraordinarily laborious. In order that begins now. … I ought to by no means have to enter considered one of our huddles, timeouts, speak about effort and taking part in laborious.”
Vaughn will definitely have to speak about taking part in smarter and cleaner.
Sure, with out Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson, they hit from deep, they usually stood toe-to-toe on the boards with the Joel Embiid-less 76ers.
However the Nets dedicated a staggering 27 turnovers, coughing up the ball in numerous methods handy Philadelphia 35 factors.
Cam Thomas had 18 factors, and the Nets hit 54.8 p.c from deep.
However they’d extra giveaways than Oprah Winfrey in her heyday, and former 76ers All-Star Ben Simmons was as responsible as anyone with 9 assists but additionally eight turnovers.
“[Simmons] seems to be excellent. He seems to be in form. He seems to be assured, very aggressive. And it seems to be like they’ve obtained a package deal of stuff in for him. So it seems to be like he’s able to go,” stated 76ers coach Nick Nurse, who had his crew ready.
“They’re actually good on the drive-and-kick, spread-you-out sport. They’ve obtained a variety of wings and a variety of shooters. They’ve obtained a variety of guys that may take it off the bounce, and that’s definitely a system that they’re taking part in.
“And Ben is known as a pass-first man, and he’s massive and robust and has an excellent first step, et cetera, to get into the paint. Generally, you’ve obtained to determine how a lot enable you to’re going to make use of on him. Are you going to let him go down one-on-one? As a result of he’ll eat you up on the rim together with his physicality should you don’t ship some assist. And should you do ship assist, he’s fairly good about firing it out. It’s an attention-grabbing crew.”
Simmons appeared good bodily.
And make no mistake, within the preseason the place scores don’t matter, his well being is precedence Nos. 1, 2 and three.
However he had three fast turnovers to place his Nets in an 18-5 gap in opposition to his previous crew.
With the Nets trailing by 16 early within the fourth quarter, Simmons had simply 4 factors and as many turnovers as assists (six).
The Nets have been in a 99-83 gap after a Filip Petrusev 3-pointer 16 seconds into the fourth.
Simmons shook off his early funk and sparked a 16-7 run.
Spencer Dinwiddie hit a 3-pointer, and after Simmons swiped the ball from Paul Reed, he cruised in for a dunk to chop the result in 106-99 with 7:35 to play.
Armoni Brooks hit a 3-pointer to drag the Nets to inside 110-104 with 4:31 remaining, however that’s as shut because it obtained.
He later hit one other 3 to make it 120-114 with 1:49 to play, however once more, they couldn’t recover from the hump.
NBA SCORES
Ra’Anana 89, Cavaliers 120
Hawks 112, Pacers 116
76ers 127, Nets 119
Rockets 99, Spurs 89
NZ Breakers 94, Jazz 114
Path Blazers 106, Suns 117
This text was initially revealed on the New York Publish and was republished with permission.