A truly frightening, bone-chilling development seeped last night through Prudential Center, where 14,319 utterly unsuspecting souls watched the Nets get dismantled, 94-73, by the Raptors, who were going without two of their top three scorers.
It was suggested the Nets were cocky, took the Raptors lightly and might have looked past this game. And so ended the Nets’ two-game winning streak.
“I don’t think we put as much emphasis on this game as we should have,” admitted point guard Deron Williams (24 points, six assists), who saw two personal streaks snuffed — the Nets had been 5-0 when he scored at least 24 this season and he had never lost to the Raptors (he’s now 14-1 against them). “After the two wins we just had and coming back home, this was a winnable ballgame, a game we should have been a little more ready for.”
Instead, the Nets played like they had wet sand for blood. And they did so on their home court, where the mojo they seek is non-existent. They were pitiful offensively — they shot 36.5 percent — and even worse defensively. The Raptors, entering as the NBA’s fourth-worst shooting team, shot 51.5 percent.
The teams were tied at 24 after the first period. Then the Nets rocked the joint for 15 second-quarter points and 14 in the third and entered the fourth down 17.
“We didn’t have any energy on either end of the floor,” said coach Avery Johnson, who suggested at one point his gang sought a “95-point play” by Williams. “They were a little bit more of a desperate team. Like I told my team at halftime, ‘We’re playing like we’re the favorites.’ I didn’t see the swagger.
“The way we looked, I guess they thought there was a ‘one’ in front of the two. Instead of two [wins] in a row, they thought it was 12. We had bad offense and bad defense.”
Yeah, but their special teams were great.
The Nets thought they were getting a lift from MarShon Brooks, who returned after missing three games with a sore left Achilles tendon. Brooks struggled, scoring six points on 3-of-10 shooting in 22 minutes, and said he was “thinking too much” instead of reacting.
Brooks’ hesitancy was the least of the problems.
“We didn’t really play too well defensively,” Brooks said in an understatement.
Deron Williams said, “We didn’t shoot well, we didn’t move the ball well … and our defense was horrible. You win some games and you kind of get a little complacent.”
“Complacent” and “Nets,” veritable soul mates.
The Raptors were minus Andrea Bargnani (calf) and Leandro Barbosa (ankle), so “these guys were stepping up in the absence of an All-Star,” Williams said.
The nonsense that was the offense reared its head after Johan Petro dunked for a 30-28 lead with 9:45 left in the second. For the next 7:01, the Nets clanged 11 straight shots and tossed in three turnovers. Williams broke the drought after the Nets were down nine.
But the real telethon-worthy disaster came in the third quarter. DeMar DeRozan, held to just three points largely through the work of Stevenson on Jan. 6 when the Nets routed the Raptors in Toronto, torched the Nets with 11 of his game-high 27 points in the quarter.
So they entered the fourth quarter without offense or defense or a chance.