![\"Jalen](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/jalen-smith-25-chicago-bulls-119060392.jpg\")
Jalen Smith of the Chicago Bulls defends against Michael Porter Jr. of the Brooklyn Nets as Porter Jr. looks for the open man during the second quarter. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\nIt wasn\u2019t perfect. Or even pretty.<\/p>\n
But it was enough to snap the longest losing skid in the league. Barely.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn threw away a 20-point fourth-quarter cushion and needed a last-ditch basket by Michael Porter Jr. to pull out a 112-109 escape against Chicago before a sellout crowd of 17,548 at Barclays Center on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Porter had a game-high 26 points, including a go-ahead layup with five seconds left. <\/p>\n
Then the Nets needed a late steal by rookie Drake Powell on Tre Jones to close out what should have been an easy win, having turned a laugher into a nail-biter.<\/p>\n
Jalen Smith of the Chicago Bulls defends against Michael Porter Jr. of the Brooklyn Nets as Porter Jr. looks for the open man during the second quarter. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\n
The Nets had led 92-72 in the fourth quarter, and 108-102 with 1:20 to play before coughing up the next seven straight points to fall behind.<\/p>\n
But they got the huge bucket from Porter on one end, and the stop from Powell on the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is how a losing team becomes a winning team,\u201d Porter said in an on-court postgame TV interview.<\/p>\n
The Nets improved to 12-27 behind Porter and Noah Clowney, who added 23 points and 11 rebounds.<\/p>\n
The Bulls fell to 19-22.<\/p>\n
It was a pivotal night in this season-long tank-a-thon, with the four teams ahead of Brooklyn in the lottery standings all facing each other.<\/p>\n
The league-worst Pacers (10-32) defeated the runner-up Pelicans (10-34), who beat the Nets two nights earlier. And Sacramento (11-30) hosted Washington (10-29) later on Friday night. <\/p>\n
That left the Nets two games behind both the Wizards and Kings, pending that clash.<\/p>\n
From Dec. 1-27, the Nets went 7-3 behind a 103.5 Defensive Rating that was the best in the league. Their Net Rating (10.3) was third best, and defensive rebound percentage (73.3) was fourth best. <\/p>\n
But that defense had cratered since, the Nets entering Friday having dropped eight of their last nine.<\/p>\n
![\"Noah](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/01-16-26-chicago-bulls-119059614.jpg\")
Noah Clowney of the Brooklyn Nets drives past Matas Buzelis of the Chicago Bulls during the first quarter. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\n
That league-best Defensive Rating plummeted to 26th \u2014 or fifth worst \u2014 over that span. Their Net Rating was fourth worst in the league (minus-9.0) during this skid, and their defensive rebounding percentage was dead last in the entire NBA (64.0).<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what made the way they won this one so huge.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn seized control of the game with a 19-2 second-quarter run, and fittingly did it on the defensive end of the floor.<\/p>\n
Clinging to a tenuous 38-36 edge after Ayo Dosunmu\u2019s layup with 6:29 left in the half, the Nets tightened the screws. They harassed the Bulls into missing a dozen of their next 13 shots, including all six from behind the arc.<\/p>\n
By the time Egor D\u00ebmin capped their run on a free throw with 40.7 seconds remaining in the half, the Nets had padded the cushion to 57-38.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFollow all the basketball buzz in Brooklyn\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It reached 20 in the fourth quarter, when rookie Nolan Traore (team-high seven assists) found Cam Thomas for a 3-pointer that made it 92-72 with 11:20 to play.<\/p>\n
Some lackadaisical play saw Brooklyn concede a 22-6 run. When Dosunmu blew by the entire team for a dunk, the lead was down to six. And when Nic Claxton (game-high 14 rebounds) threw the ball away to Jones, Dosunmu\u2019s bucket cut it to 98-94 with 4:59 left.<\/p>\n
Chicago\u2019s Nikola Vucevic (19 points, six rebounds, five assists) bounced in a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 102-100. But Porter hit a huge left-wing 3-pointer to stem the tide.<\/p>\n
Then Clowney hit another with 1:24 remaining to make it 108-102.<\/p>\n
The Nets coughed up the next seven points, Traore turning the ball over to Ike Okoro for a breakaway dunk to make it 108-107. After Powell\u2019s shot was blocked by Vucevic, Jones scored a go-ahead breakaway with 11 seconds left.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s when Porter worked his way inside for a driving layup, and 110-109 lead with five seconds remaining in regulation. And Powell\u2019s steal ensured there would be no overtime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It wasn\u2019t perfect. Or even pretty. But it was enough to snap the longest losing skid in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,247,329,562,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-542039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn-nets","10":"tag-chicago-bulls","11":"tag-michael-porter-jr","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115908513315648964","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}