Brooklyn experienced light snow outside on Sunday, but the Portland Trail Blazers created a storm inside Barclays Center with a flurry of deep balls, shooting 52.6% from the 3-point line, to win 134-127 in an overtime victory over the Brooklyn Nets.
Despite forward Mikal Bridges scoring a game-high 42 points, the Nets could not build momentum from its Friday win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, a top-5 team in the NBA. The Nets have dropped to 16-21 on the season and is in 9th place in the Eastern Conference.
A snow flurry didn’t dampen the energy of the sell-out crowd looking for a Nets victory over the Trail Blazers. The visitors came into the game with a 9-25 record, which is close to the bottom of the Western Conference standings.
The Nets led for most of the afternoon, but in the late minutes of the 4th quarter, the game turned into a roller coaster with two lead changes and two tie-scores in the final two minutes.
Bridges scored 13 points, while forward Day'ron Sharpe poured in 9 points off the Nets bench in the opening quarter. Nets center Nic Claxton added 6 points and 2 blocked shots in the 1st, impacting the game with shooting and hustle as the Nets went up early.
The game was closely contested in the first half, with the Nets going into the locker room with a 52-50 lead, buoyed by their 26 points in the paint against the Trail Blazers.
The Nets had an eight-point advantage after three quarters, leading 93-85 going into the 4th, which is where Brooklyn's shooting went as cold as the air outside.
The Nets shot 0-5 from the three-point line, while still giving up clean looks to the Trail Blazer's shooters who went 4-8 from beyond the line in the 4th quarter.
The Trail Blazers were fueled by guard Anfernee Simons' in the 4th, when he scored 13 of his team-high 38 points and handed out 4 assists as he easily found open teammates. This helped give the Trail Blazers their first lead at the 6:38 mark of the 4th quarter, who battled back and forth with the Nets. With the score at 115-115, the two teams headed into overtime.
Then it was all about Malcom Brogdon, who was sent to the Portland Trail Blazers in October as part of the three-team deal that sent Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks.
The eight-year veteran scored 8 of his 18 points for the game in the final two minutes of overtime, splashing in back-to-back 3-pointers and scoring a finger-roll layup, all off assists from Simons, who dominated late with 19 points and 7 assists from the 4th quarter to overtime.
The loss sucked the air out of Barclays and sent the home team fans back into the inclement weather.
The Nets' next game is against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Paris, France on Thursday, January 11th. They can lick their wounds from the OT defeat on the trans-Atlantic flight and contemplate how to avoid a $100,000 fine for violating the player participation policy when the coaches benched more players than they should have versus the Milwaukee Bucks in late December.
