Two days before Christmas and all through the house, the Brooklyn Nets were reeling, playing meek as a mouse.
But since the hapless Detroit Pistons are the gift that keeps giving in the NBA, they were the perfect early Christmas present to save the day.
The Nets nearly looked the gift horse in the mouth before defeating the Pistons 126-115 at Barclays Center Saturday night, in an embarrassingly close game against the historically bad Detroit team.
During a five-game losing streak, Brooklyn could not buy a win if it was 90% off with free shipping and cash-back points. They lost close games against the Suns, Warriors, and Nuggets and blowouts to the Nuggets, Knicks, and Utah. It was the Nets' longest losing streak this season and the longest since a five-game schneid from March 14, to March 23, last season.
Even in victory, Brooklyn left coal in Nets fans' holiday stockings with a porous defensive showing. Lucky for the Nets, the Pistons also rank near the bottom of the league in team 3-point defense, as they allowed Brooklyn to shoot 41.7% from distance.
The Nets showed real promise early in the 2023-2024 campaign, clocking in with a winning record at the quarter mark of the season, mostly without starting point guard Ben Simmons, who is a catalyst on both sides of the ball for Brooklyn. After six spirited games to start the season, Mr. Simmons took his usual stylish spot on the bench and has not seen game action since.
Both teams allow opponents to shoot above league average for three-point percentage and rank near the bottom third of opponents points per game allowed. The recent Nets downswing has coincided with forward Mikal Bridges' recent shooting slump.
Brooklyn was 1-6 over its previous seven games before playing the 2-27 Pistons, and a hearty victory would have seen Brooklyn beat the breaks off of Detroit, turning the 3rd quarter into garbage time for Harry Giles III to get some quality minutes off the bench. Instead, the game was still in doubt when Detroit cut the lead to 9 points in the middle of the 4th quarter.
The Nets had a balanced stat sheet in the scoring column, with seven players scoring in double figures, with Bridges leading the charge with 29 points on 9-17 shooting, with 7 assists and 6 rebounds, with guard Cam Thomas dropping 20 points and forward Cam Johnson adding 18.
Hopefully, the silver lining of the win against Detroit is Bridges regaining his shooting touch.
The Nets travel to Detroit on Tuesday, December 26th, for the 2nd part of the home-and-home tilt against the Pistons, where they will attempt to run Detroit's losing streak to 27 games and put them all alone in the record books for the most ignominious record that no NBA team wants.
