The Brooklyn Nets were going so well for three quarters.
The starters. The bench. Everyone was clicking. Kevin Garnett even made a 3-pointer.
Then the fourth quarter happened -- and a near epic meltdown ensued.
Up 24 with eight minutes remaining, the Nets allowed the Orlando Magic to close the game on a 27-5 run but managed to prevail with a 100-98 win that has them at .500 for the first time since Nov. 13. Brooklyn (16-16 overall, 14-3 vs. sub-.500 teams) has emerged victorious in six of its past seven games, though this sort of felt like a loss by the end.
“We gotta put teams away,” Deron Williams told the YES Network after Jarrett Jack threw the ball in the air and time expired following Elfred Payton’s 3-pointer got the Magic within two with 3.8 seconds remaining.
“We played great for three quarters, and then in the fourth quarter we stopped executing, stopped getting stops, our pick-and-roll defense was horrible and it just gave them a lot of confidence. A team like [the Magic] ain’t gonna quit. They got young players who play hard.”
Mason Plumlee had 18 points and nine rebounds on 9-for-10 shooting, while max reserves Williams (3-for-3 3-point territory, seven assists) and Brook Lopez (eight rebounds, three blocks) each added 16 points.
The Nets outscored the Magic 30-15 in the second quarter and 34-21 in the third quarter to take an 86-61 lead into the fourth. With Williams and Lopez commanding the second unit, Brooklyn has outscored its opponents by 46 points in its past three second quarters combined (91-45). Garnett knocked down his first triple as a Net with 5:26 remaining in the third.
“Shout out to Rasheed Wallace, he’s always on my a-- about shooting 3s,” Garnett joked to reporters, according to the Bergen Record. “I told him that’s what got him out of the league.”
The Nets made eight consecutive shots in the third at one point. The rout was on. That is, until it wasn’t.
Over the last eight minutes, the Nets shot 1-for-9 and committed seven turnovers. Williams and Joe Johnson were the only players on the floor for the entire eight-minute span, during which Brooklyn was outscored by 22.
Bigs Lopez and Plumlee logged only 55 seconds and 2:44, respectively, during their team’s near collapse. Nets coach Lionel Hollins decided to go with a small lineup that featured Williams, Jack, Alan Anderson, Johnson and Garnett. That fivesome went 0-for-4 with two turnovers in three minutes and was outscored by four points. Evan Fournier missed a 3-pointer with 23 seconds left that would’ve tied the game.
It often seems like Brooklyn’s rotations are like the rules of Fight Club. You do not play Williams and Jack together. You do not play Lopez and Plumlee together. You do not play Anderson and Jack together. When these rules are broken -- and, in Hollins’ defense, it’s hard not to keep breaking them in the hopes that they work out, because they kind of need to for the team to be successful in the long run -- bad things typically happen.
In the final period, the Nets shot 5-for-15 from the field with eight turnovers and were outscored 37-14. Young and athletic teams continue to give them trouble, and their starters combined for 19 miscues on the night.
On the bright side, however, they did manage to prevail. Most importantly, it was as confident as Williams and Lopez looked since coming back from injury.
There’s definitely something working with some of the lineups: the makeshift Jack, Sergey Karasev, Johnson, Garnett, Plumlee starting combination; the Williams, Karasev, Anderson, Mirza Teletovic, Lopez mostly bench combination; the Jack, Karasev, Anderson, Johnson, Plumlee small fourth-quarter combination. The Nets need to stick with these.
It seems like they’re once again developing an identity by accident.
But is it sustainable? And will they ever get it down pat?