INDIANAPOLIS — Back-to-back has plagued the Nets all season.
The sooner they start clearing that hurdle, the better.
The Nets lost 121-100 to the Pacers on Saturday night, falling to 4-7 on the second night of a back-to-back.
They will face the San Antonio Spurs, who need to advance in their division, on Sunday night in Austin, Texas.
They started the season with a dismal 2-7 record in the final stretch, but won their final two games against Philadelphia on March 5th, 112-107, and five days later against Cleveland, winning 120-1. I laughed out loud at 101.
However, Mikal Bridges is already in a funk as he struggles with the short break.
In Saturday’s loss, he finished with seven points on 1-of-8 shooting.
Entering the weekend, Bridges was averaging just 16.7 points on below-average shooting splits of .392/.333/.727 over his last 13 games.
The NBA schedule has its quirks, and then there’s this.
The Nets went through the first 66 games without playing Indiana once, and now face the Pacers three times in the remaining 16 games, including Saturday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
“Yeah, it’s a little different. They’ve never seen it before and they play a unique style,” interim head coach Kevin Ollie said. “They move up and down the court and play with a lot of pace. They don’t have a lot of patterns. They have a lot of rhythm. And they have great guards and they play with pace, so we I have to go back.”
On Saturday, the Nets made 13 of 18 from the foul line in the first half, the second-most free throws in a first half this season. Against Orlando on December 2nd, he scored 15 of his 20 points in the first half.
Bridges’ first 3-pointer against Indiana was his 170th of the season, moving him into seventh place in Nets single-season history. Next up was Joe Harris, who came in sixth with 172 in the 2019-20 season.
Ben Simmons underwent a microscopic partial discectomy on Thursday and is out for the season.
First-round pick Darik Whitehead is with the Nets, but is out for the season after undergoing stress reaction surgery on his shin in January.
Fellow first-round pick Noah Clowney was called up from Long Island on Saturday morning. In his last two games in the G League, he averaged 25.5 points and 9.5 boards.
He played four minutes and was scoreless in Saturday’s loss.
Doug McDermott (right calf strain) and Benedict Mathurin (right shoulder torn labrum) missed the game against Indiana State.
