AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — With Brook Lopez sitting out Friday night against the Pistons due to a sprained left ankle, Nets coach Jason Kidd said his team would continue its focus on playing inside-out, a plan that worked quite well during the team’s three-game winning streak heading into the game.
Instead, the Pistons battered and bruised the visitors in the paint, outscoring and outrebounding the Lopez-less Nets on their way to a 103-99 victory at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
“No matter who we play, going in we knew we had to protect the paint, and in that first half we did not do that,” Kidd said. “We got a bit better in that second half, but we gave up way too many points in the paint.”
During their recent run, the Nets (8-15) have had lots of success pounding the ball inside, be it to Lopez, who sat out with a sprained left ankle he suffered in Thursday’s win over the Clippers in Brooklyn, or one of their other size mismatches around the perimeter. But it was the opposite Friday, as the Pistons — much as they did in the teams’ first meeting in Brooklyn on Nov. 24, another game Lopez missed — obliterated the Nets in the post, thanks in particular to the play of Detroit’s excellent tandem of young big men, Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe.
The Nets had no answer for either one. Drummond came free for one wide open dunk or putback after another as the game progressed, while Monroe executed a series of nice post moves over a variety of Nets defenders throughout. The duo also combined for seven offensive rebounds — as many as the Nets had as a team.
“It’s tough,” said Andray Blatche, who finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds (including four offensive boards) off the bench. “They’re very great offensive rebounders. When the guards drive and our bigs step up, they are right there to get the rebounds. It was a tough situation for us.”
Drummond finished with 22 points (on 8-for-11 shooting), 13 rebounds and two blocked shots and was 6-for-8 from the foul line after entering the game shooting just 37.5 percent from the charity stripe this season. Monroe finished with 22 points on 10-for-18 shooting to go along with 11 boards, as the bigs led five Pistons (11-13) in double figures.
Led by Drummond and Monroe, the Pistons had a 60-38 edge in points in the paint, 21-8 in second chance points, 43-38 in rebounding and even outscored the Nets 12-3 in transition, with several of those points coming on Drummond dunks.
Things were especially bad for the Nets in the second quarter, when they were outscored 38-20 — including allowing the Pistons to go 14-for-19 from the free-throw line — as they were manhandled inside on one possession after another.
“It just seemed like we had nothing,” Deron Williams said. “We couldn’t get stops, and because we couldn’t get stops, we couldn’t get out in transition like we were in the first quarter and get easy baskets, and that put pressure on our offense.”
Williams was once again terrific for the Nets, finishing with 22 points and nine assists in 41 minutes, but also committing a key turnover inside of a minute left when, down four, he was clearly fouled by Brandon Jennings but after the officials let play go and gave the Nets the ball out of bounds, it was reviewed and given to Detroit although the ball was last touched by Williams.
“What can you do?” Williams said. “There’s nothing you can do. That wasn’t the ball game. It hurt us. It definitely hurt us, but we put ourselves in the hole in the second quarter. Allowing 38 points in a quarter, that’s unacceptable any game.”
In addition to Williams and Blatche, the Nets also got good production from Mirza Teletovic, who started the second half in place of Reggie Evans — who started the game for Lopez. Teletovic scored 17 points, including hitting a career-high five 3-pointers to help the Nets close what was once a 21-point deficit all the way to two when Paul Pierce hit a 3-pointer with 11.1 seconds left. But Kyle Singler made a pair of free throws with 10.4 seconds remaining to ice the game and send the Nets home with a loss.
“There’s no moral victories,” Pierce said. “At the end of the day, we can’t dig ourselves such a big hole. We knew this was going to be a mentally tough game, and physically being the third game in four nights. The key was just to try and stay in it early and win it late, but we dug ourselves such a big hole that we battled back, ran out of gas and didn’t get the breaks.”