The Nets had plenty of things working against them last night.
First, they were left wondering up until almost tip-off as to whether or not they would have shooting guard Joe Johnson available, after he spent all day feeling sick. But after Johnson was able to give it a go, the Nets quickly lost Gerald Wallace halfway through the first quarter when he suffered a hard fall on a drive to the basket, bruised his ribs and was forced to leave the game.
Then, after a sluggish first half, Deron Williams suffered a right quad contusion barely over a minute into the third quarter, leaving him clearly hobbled for the remainder of the game.
But, in the end, it didn’t matter. The Nets were able to overcome all of that, as well as their own poor play in that first half, thanks to a massive second-half surge that sent them to a 99-79 victory over the Suns and pushed their winning streak to five games.
“We’re banged up right now, and we found a way to win,” said Nets interim coach P.J. Carlesimo, who improved to 7-1 since he took over for Avery Johnson two weeks ago.
Joe Johnson, who finished with a game-high 19 points, said he wasn’t able to sleep at all the night before because he wasn’t feeling well. But it looked like none of his teammates had been able to, either, with the way they played as a group in the first half against the Suns (12-26). The Nets looked out of sorts offensively, shooting 42 percent from the field while committing eight turnovers that led to several easy buckets for the Suns.
“We were lucky to be as close as we were at halftime, to be honest with you,” Carlesimo said. “It could have been a lot worse at halftime than it was.”
Phoenix, on the other hand, couldn’t miss, shooting 54 percent from the field and 50 percent (5-for-10) from 3-point range while seemingly getting a hand on nearly every loose ball or rebound. But the Nets were able to hang in the game by being aggressive getting to the basket, earning them 22 trips to the foul line, to allow them to end the half trailing 53-46.
“It was similar to the Philly game [Tuesday] where we came in and talked amongst ourselves and we knew we didn’t play like we were capable of playing,” said Williams, who finished with 15 points and six assists. “Defensively we reverted to our old ways, [and] offensively it was the same thing … the ball was sticking.”
Carlesimo said he was considering pulling the plug on Johnson if things didn’t start to improve when the Nets came back out for the second half, but his team finally woke up in the third quarter.
The Nets outscored the Suns 28-13 in the third while holding them to 5-for-20 shooting from the field, and ended the quarter on an 18-6 run fueled by 16 combined points from Andray Blatche and MarShon Brooks to end the quarter with a 74-66 lead.
“We weren’t playing as a team, we weren’t having fun,” Williams said of the Nets’ first half. “In the third quarter, we were having fun.”
The Nets then made sure to immediately put the game away, opening the fourth quarter with eight straight points and a 17-7 run to put it well out of reach. By the time it was over, they had outscored the Suns 53-26 in the second half, including holding the Suns to ghastly 23.7 percent (9-for-38) shooting from the floor and forcing them into 10 turnovers.
That allowed the Nets to head into tomorrow’s matchup with the equally hot Pacers in Brooklyn looking like the team that opened the season 11-4 in November before falling into a swoon in December.
“We have just bought into what P.J. wants us to do at both ends of the floor,” Johnson said. “We are trying to get back to being defensive-minded and being the team we were when the season first started. Guys have been playing well.”