The Brooklyn Nets lost their fourth game in a row, this time to the New Orleans Pelicans. It was an embarrassing performance by Brooklyn, trailing by 20+ points for the last 28 minutes of the game.
It is tough to see a bright spot in a blowout loss, but Cameron Johnson had a good game, scoring 17 points powered by five three-pointers. Day’Ron Sharpe also had a solid performance off the bench as he scored 12 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
“I was very concerned about how we responded. We’ve been a team that’s been able to step up to challenges. We didn’t do a lot of things well tonight,” Coach Vaughn said after the disappointing result. “We didn’t shoot the basketball well, we didn’t rebound the basketball well, we had no physicality tonight. When you have a list of items like that, you’re not gonna win a ball game.”
The Pelicans dominated the entire game
New Orleans took a 9-0 lead and never looked back, dominating the rest of the way. After the first quarter, the scoreline was already 32-18 for the Pelicans, and Brooklyn failed to mount a comeback.
There was no individual standout for the Pels because their highest scorer was CJ McCollum, who had 16 points. It was a well-rounded performance for Willie Green’s squad, with seven players in double-figures.
New Orleans dominated with three-point shooting as the players hit 16 shots on 39 attempts; this was another entry to the Nets’ problems of giving up too many long-range shots. In the last 12 games, opponents are shooting 43.5% from beyond the arc against the team, the league’s highest percentage during that stretch.
Nets players’ concerning performances
This was a bad day for all the Nets, especially Cameron Thomas, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Royce O’Neale. All three players combined for 23 shot attempts but failed to hit a single shot.
That is extremely concerning for Jacque Vaughn and the coaching staff as they continue to look for solutions to boost their offense. The encouraging ball movement and high energy from their recent games were gone.
Moving forward, Brooklyn will have another crack at ending their losing streak on the second night of a back-to-back against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center.
