PHILADELPHIA — If Andray Blatche or his Nets teammates were distracted by the noise surrounding them yesterday, they certainly didn’t play like it.
The Nets used a dominating performance in the third quarter to blow open a competitive game and cruise to a 109-89 victory over the 76ers after spending the hours leading up to the game dealing with the fallout from Blatche being questioned by police early yesterday morning in connection with an alleged sexual assault at the team’s hotel.
“Players are very, very resilient,” interim coach P.J. Carlesimo said after the Nets’ fourth straight win and sixth in seven games since he took over for Avery Johnson. “I just think that one of the traits of NBA players are they come and they play, and they really don’t bring any other, any outside interference into the game.
“Guys come and they play.”
Against the Sixers, Blatche didn’t look like a player who had hardly slept, finishing with 20 points and seven rebounds on 8-for-15 shooting. The strong effort came just hours after he had been questioned by Philadelphia police after a woman told police she was sexually assaulted in his hotel room early yesterday morning, according to reports.
Blatche was unavailable to reporters after the game.
The 6-foot-11 forward, who had his contract guaranteed for the rest of the season Monday evening, entered to a smattering of boos midway through the first quarter and proceeded to play a very effective stint of 10:27 in the first half. He largely benefitted from being covered by Sixers center Spencer Hawes, who had plenty of trouble staying with Blatche.
That allowed Blatche to use his ball-handling skills to take Hawes off the dribble and into the lane, where he hit a couple of runners and also drew a couple of fouls that allowed him to go 4-for-4 from the foul line, as he finished the half with 10 points and a rebound.
He had a similar impact in the second half, picking up 10 points and five rebounds as he helped spur the third-quarter run for the Nets and then was part of a second unit that kept the Sixers at bay in the fourth.
“He stayed focused,” said Deron Williams, who finished with 22 points and five assists. “I talked to him about that today, just staying focused, and he came out and played great basketball.”
After a sluggish first half that left the Nets (20-15) clinging to a 48-47 lead at the break, they opened the third quarter with an 18-2 run and never looked back. They eventually outscored the Sixers 35-14 in the third, taking control of the game and allowing Carlesimo to give plenty of rest to his starters in the fourth.
“That’s the stuff you want to see,” Williams said. “We didn’t play the way we wanted to in that first half, we felt we could play a lot better, and we talked about it and came out and did it.
“That’s what you like to see out of teams, and that’s what the good teams do.”
The Nets were able to hold the lead in that first half, despite shooting 38 percent from the field and allowing the Sixers to shoot 50 percent, because they managed to get to the foul line, where they went 12-for-13, and because Reggie Evans dominated the glass.
Evans, who finished with a career-high 23 rebounds, had 16 in the first half alone, compared to 19 for the entire Sixers team.
“Reggie was ridiculous on the boards,” Carlesimo said.
A week after a blowout loss in San Antonio on New Year’s Eve left them with a dismal 5-11 record in December, the Nets have suddenly reeled off four straight wins, including a pair of decisive victories in a row, and have a totally different frame of mind.
“It always feels good to be winning,” Gerald Wallace said. “This is sports. Winning cures everything. When we’re losing, everything is blown out of proportion, and when you win everything is simplified and it’s a lot easier and more fun.”