BOSTON — Boston wasn’t the only place where the Nets were massacred. they were exposed.
Brooklyn’s 136-86 humiliation in front of a sold-out crowd of 19,156 at TD Garden wasn’t a one-off involving players heading into the All-Star break.
This was an example of a problem being exposed.
“Yeah, I mean, you have to learn and solve problems. That’s pretty much it. You can’t just leave this alone and think, ‘Oh, let’s just quit.’ No,” Mikal Bridges said. “Well, even if you lose at the end, if you lose by 50 points, that might be the case. It’s not like you just say, ‘Let it go.’ A lot of things aren’t right and we need to fix it. ”
Bridges and Cam Johnson are the only Nets players to play for a title and reach the 2021 NBA Finals with Phoenix.
They are acutely aware of what championship basketball is like. And Bridges is acutely aware that this is not the case.
Brooklyn was outscored by as many as 56 points, falling to 21 wins and 33 losses.
If the Celtics had no sympathy for them and ran the clock off the dribble not once but twice with only seconds left, the Nets could easily have suffered their worst loss in history — a 52-point loss to Houston in 1978. He may have suffered from…
The Nets trailed by 18 points in the first quarter, 37 points in the second, and by an astonishing 46 points by the end of the third quarter, losing the game.
But the fourth 56 looked like a misprint. Or a nightmare.
Dennis Schroder said, “I lost the game. I wasn’t physical enough to start the game. It starts with me.” “But at the end of the day, they’re a hell of a team. And yet, we didn’t make plays, we weren’t physical. They played everywhere they wanted defensively, but we didn’t play our offense. But they approached us physically and we couldn’t get to our position.
“They just outplayed us. If they had lost by one point, it would have been the same. A loss is a loss. They kicked our butts. But now everyone’s going on vacation. , we get to see our families and re-energize and regroup, but we still have a mission to make the playoffs.”
At this point, the playoffs, or even the play-ins, are becoming less of a concern for the Nets.
The Nets lead Atlanta by 2.5 heading into the All-Star break for the final play-in spot, with just 28 games remaining at the start.
And nothing about this effort, or frankly this season’s work, gives us a lot of confidence that this is a team that can overturn even this modest deficit.
Jayson Tatum scored just 20 points on the night after scoring 41 points for the Nets.
But he was hardly needed because frankly the Nets didn’t play.
Cam Thomas, making his first start as a Net, and Schroder, as expected, struggled defensively.
Derrick White had 27 points, and backup Peyton Pritchard had a game-high 28 points on 11-of-16 shooting and 6-of-9 from deep.
But perhaps just as concerning for the Nets was the offensive woes of Thomas and Schroder.
Thomas entered the game second on the team, scoring 21.5 points per game, but was held to just 5 on 1-of-9 shooting.
Schroder, who started in Ben Simmons’ absence, finished with just four points and one assist.
Trendon Watford led Brooklyn with 15 and Bridges was the only Net to score in double figures with 10.
Their offense appears to be in dire turmoil, and Bridges said they need a game plan with Simmons and a game plan without Simmons.
“We had to know what we were doing and come up with a game plan as a team and as coaches. It can’t be the same for everyone. It can’t be the same. . Everybody’s different,” Bridges said. “It’s a different situation with Ben. Because of how the team is guarding him, he could handoff off the dribble and stop it. There’s four guards there. [Nic] Claxton, it’s a different game. So kind of know how to play that way and how to adjust it. ”
The Nets stumbled from the start, losing 14-4.
Brooklyn was 2-of-9 from the floor and 0-of-3 from behind the arc. It got even worse.
Tatum’s finger roll at the 3:25 mark of the first inning quickly increased the lead to 26-8.
White’s pull-up 3-pointer made it 66-29 with 30 minutes left in the first half.
In the third, Tatum hit a 3-pointer off Sam Hauser, increasing the lead to 77-32.
And by the fourth, the Celtics bench had a formula.
