Nets host Knicks after L.A. meltdown

Brooklyn looking to rebound from sad finish vs Clippers

January 23, 2024 John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle

"Definitely not fun" is how Nets forward Mikal Bridges described the team's ongoing slump, which has resulted in 15 losses in the last 19 games. AP Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez

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The Nets appeared poised to complete an impressive sweep in Los Angeles Sunday afternoon.

Instead, they dragged themselves back to Brooklyn to host the East River rival Knicks Tuesday following one of their most embarrassing losses of the season.

“We were stuck, didn’t know what to do or how to break it,” Nets forward Mikal Bridges ceded after he and his teammates squandered an 18-point lead before absorbing a hard-to-swallow 125-114 defeat to the Clippers in front of 19,370 fans at crypto.com Arena.

Brooklyn (17-25) was coming off Friday night’s exhilarating 130-112 rout of LeBron James and the Lakers in Los Angeles, which snapped its four-game slide.

The Nets took a comfortable 99-84 lead into the final period two days later, only to watch former teammate James Harden and the Clippers (27-14) close the contest on a startling 22-0 run.

Brooklyn was outscored by a whopping 41-15 count over the final 12 minutes.

“They came out and punched us in the mouth and in that fourth quarter we played Clipper basketball, got some stops and the rest is history,” said Harden, who finished with 24 points and 10 assists while handing Brooklyn its 15th loss in 19 games.

Bridges led the Nets with 26 points and Cam Thomas added 20 off the bench, but Brooklyn bowed under the pressure of putting L.A. away.

The Nets misfired on their last eight shots after Bridges scored with 5:33 remaining to give them a 114-103 advantage.

“Just got to be better for the whole 48,” Bridges added.

It might not get much better at home, where the Nets have lost five of their last six games.

Brooklyn once again dipped a season-worst eight games below .500 after climbing as high as three games above the break-even mark on Dec. 13.

Nets coach Jacque Vaughn is running out of ways to inspire his free-falling unit, especially after Sunday’s fourth-quarter collapse in Los Angeles. AP Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez

The past five weeks have featured a pair of trips out west that resulted in two wins and six losses, an ugly defeat to Cleveland in Paris during a transcontinental 1-4 homestand, and the Nets’ latest debacle in the City of Angels.

“I think it just tells you that our group is still learning lessons,” said Brooklyn coach Jacque Vaughn.

“And so whether it’s being organized after a free-throw in which you have plenty of time to be organized and get into a set, you got that piece of it, Whether it’s taking the shots that you would normally take throughout the course of the game that your teammates expect you to take, that piece of it.”

Brooklyn will play 10 of its next 11 games on the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush, beginning with its second tilt of the year against the Knicks (26-17).

New York, which has won nine of its last 11, cruised to a 121-102 victory over the Nets here on Dec. 20.

Coming off a 1-4 trip that ended in Utah two nights earlier, Brooklyn looked lackadaisical from the jump, trailing by double digits after one quarter and never seriously challenging thereafter on the way to its first home loss in the Battle of Boroughs series since Dec. 26, 2019.

“We both were on the West Coast. Nobody can use that as an excuse, Vaughn said after noting that the Knicks were coming back from four games out of their time zone as well.

“They came back home, we came back home, played a game, same amount of rest, and they were better than us tonight in all facets of the game.”

The Knicks, who have won three straight against the Nets and three in a row overall entering this rematch, ran past Toronto on Saturday at Madison Square Garden behind 38 points from Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle’s 14th career triple-double.

Randle amassed 18 points, 16 boards and 10 assists for New York, which had lost six consecutive visits to Brooklyn before last month’s wire-to-wire win.

“Everything’s back to normal I guess,” Randle jabbed that night when asked about the rivalry swinging back in the Knicks’ favor.

Bridges described the Nets’ recent woes best with three simple words.

“Definitely not fun,” he dead-panned.

Knicks forward Julius Randle had 26 points in New York’s 121-102 rout of the Nets in their last visit to Barclays Center on Dec. 20. AP Photo by Frank Franklin II

NOTHING BUT NET: After hosting the Knicks, the Nets will welcome Minnesota to Barclays on Thursday. … New York will host the next two Battle of Boroughs games at the Garden on March 23 and April 12. The Nets had won nine in a row in the series, including six straight in Brooklyn, before trading Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving last February. … Vaughn was expected to give an update Tuesday on the progress of guard Ben Simmons, who has been out since Nov. 6 with a nerve impingement in his lower back. Simmons will not play against the Knicks.