Nets lack ‘toughness’ in loss to Magic

Fall to 1-3 on road trip with porous effort in Orlando

March 14, 2024 John Torenli, Sports Editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Even when he was surrounded by three Nets, Paolo Banchero found a way to lead the Magic to an easy victory over visiting Brooklyn Wednesday. AP Photo by John Raoux

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Interim Nets coach Kevin Ollie questioned his team’s resolve, toughness and focus following yet another disappointing performance in Orlando.

Brooklyn trailed by 17 points after 12 minutes and never seriously challenged thereafter, suffering a 114-106 loss to the Magic Wednesday night in front of 18,846 fans at the Kia Center.

“We have to show a physicality, a toughness, and we just didn’t do it tonight,” Ollie noted. “We had spurts, got back in the game, but you can’t get down by 15 and 18 in the first quarter, especially on the road.”

With two days off following their rousing win in Cleveland on Sunday, the Nets (26-40) were eager to avenge their 108-81 loss in Orlando on Feb. 27, when the Southeast Division-leading Magic (38-28) were without leading scorer Paolo Banchero due to an illness.

Ollie’s unit hardly resembled a team desperate for a victory with a spot in the Eastern Conference’s play-in tournament still within reach.

Instead, Brooklyn fell behind 33-16 after the opening quarter and trailed by as many as 19 points en route to its third loss in four games on this six-game road trip, which will continue Saturday night in Indiana.

“That’s a physical team,” Ollie added. “They just did a really good job of taking the physicality to us, and we just cannot allow a team to do that, especially a team that good.”

Banchero burned the Nets for 21 points and nine assists, distributing the ball quite ably and opening scoring lanes for his teammates, six of whom also scored in double figures.

The 6-foot-10 power forward missed one shot the entire night, going 6-of-6 from the floor and 8-of-9 at the charity stripe. He also grabbed three boards en route to finishing with a game-high plus-18 differential.

Cam Thomas’ 21 points and eight rebounds weren’t enough to stop the Nets from falling to 1-3 on their road trip Wednesday in Orlando. AP Photo by John Raoux

The Nets did pull within eight points early in the fourth quarter, but Orlando responded with a 19-8 burst, sparked by a high, arching 3-pointer from Joe Ingles that bounded off the rim, scraped the top of the backboard and fell through the twine.

“They just hit some tough shots, some lucky shots,” said Cam Thomas, who led Brooklyn with 21 points and eight rebounds. “But you just have to live with shots like that. It’s an 11-point lead at that point, so you just have to try to get the lead back down again.”

Banchero added a pair of free throws and drained a step-back 17-footer during the spurt to stretch the advantage to 107-93 with less than five minutes to play, extinguishing any hope of a Brooklyn comeback.

“I give a lot of credit to Paolo,” Magic center Wendell Carter Jr. told the Associated Press.

“I’ve seen him kind of set the tone for everyone else before, and that was his approach tonight. We were a lot more physical than they were tonight.”

Mikal Bridges had his second straight scoreless first half in Orlando, but did rally to put up 17 after managing a season-low four points in the Nets’ first visit last month.

Carter Jr. finished with 15 points and Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs added 14 apiece for the Magic, who ended a two-game skid by limiting the Nets to a season low-tying seven 3-pointers on 26 attempts.

Nets forward Cam Johnson, returning from a three-game absence due to an ankle injury, scored 13 points off the bench, and so did Dennis Schroder.

However, Brooklyn slipped four games behind 10th-place Atlanta in the hunt for the final spot in the play-in, pending the Hawks’ result in Portland later Wednesday night.

Whether they lost ground or remained on the precipice of the hunt for postseason contention with 16 games remaining, Ollie’s call for more toughness must be heeded when the Nets kick off a back-to-back in Indiana on Saturday ahead of their Sunday trip to Austin to meet San Antonio.

“We have to get this one in Indiana,” Ollie insisted.

Interim coach Kevin Ollie hopes to point the Nets back into the win column Saturday night in Indiana. AP Photo by Sue Ogrocki

NOTHING BUT NET: The Nets and Magic split their four-game regular-season series with each winning twice on their home floor. Brooklyn will head to Indiana for the first of three meetings over the season’s final month. The Nets’ game in Austin’s Moody Center will be a neutral site affair, but will count as a Brooklyn home game. … The Nets will return to Barclays Center on Tuesday to host New Orleans before beginning a four-game trip in Milwaukee on March 21. … The Pacers (37-30) will be looking to shake off Wednesday’s 132-129 home loss to Chicago when they host Brooklyn on Saturday. Myles Turner scored 27 points for Indiana, which slipped into a tie with Philadelphia for the sixth seed in the East and an automatic berth into a first-round playoff series. “It’s a gut punch,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle admitted.