A sellout crowd packed Barclays Center to watch what might have been LeBron James\u2019 last game in New York.<\/p>\n
They saw King James give Brooklyn a royal thrashing.<\/p>\n
The Nets got beaten 125-109 by James and his Lakers before a crowd of 18,248 on Tuesday night. And it wasn\u2019t as close as the score would indicate.<\/p>\n
LeBron James slams home a dunk during the first half of the Nets\u2019 125-109 blowout loss to the Lakers at Barclays Center on Feb. 3, 2026. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
This was yet another desultory performance by a team getting all too comfortable with getting blown out and bullied around.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The mission] is just to compete for 48 minutes from the first to the last possession,\u201d coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cI think when we\u2019ve done that, we\u2019ve looked very competitive and good and we\u2019ve gotten better. The moments when we haven\u2019t done that, that\u2019s not helping us grow. So that\u2019s the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooklyn (13-36) had already suffered a 54-point loss to the Knicks on Jan. 21 and a 53-point rout at the Pistons on Sunday, only the fourth team in NBA history with multiple 50-point losses in the same season. They had a 37-point caning at the Clippers sandwiched in between, just for good measure.<\/p>\n
Tuesday they trailed by 39, before at least trying to make it respectable, rallying rather than wilting. But it was too little and far, far too late.<\/p>\n
Michael Porter Jr. led the Nets with 21 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Day\u2019Ron Sharpe had season highs of 19 points, 14 boards and five assists off the bench, while Ziaire Williams added 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting in his return from injury.<\/p>\n
Michael Porter Jr. drives to the basket during the first half of the Nets\u2019 blowout home loss to the Lakers. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the win in Utah was good; and then the game in Detroit, we\u2019ve just got too [lackadaisical],\u201d Porter said before the game. \u201cWith some of these teams that play a physical brand of basketball, we\u2019ve got to be aware of how they play and really attack the game plan, know what they give up defensively and not play right into their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
James \u2014 who has been in the league longer than most of Brooklyn\u2019s starting lineup have been alive \u2014 was the one that looked young and spry. He had 25 points, seven assists, three steals and sailed in for several highlight dunks before checking out with 8:05 remaining to loud applause.<\/p>\n
If it was the 41-year-old\u2019s final competitive game in New York \u2014 and he hasn\u2019t made any declarative statements about how long he\u2019ll play \u2014 it was a solid one.<\/p>\n
Ziaire Williams drives down court as LeBron James defends during the Nets\u2019 blowout home loss to the Lakers. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
There was nothing solid about the Nets\u2019 effort.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn trailed by as much as 39, at 83-44 when Luka Doncic (24 points, six rebounds, five assists) hit from behind the arc with 8:08 left in the third.<\/p>\n
It was 111-83 when James checked out.<\/p>\n
The rest was garbage time, and a crowd filled with purple-and-gold-clad Lakers fans cheering for James\u2019 son, Bronny, who scored a couple of late buckets that sent them into a frenzy.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn kept pace with Washington, tied for fourth in the lottery odds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sellout crowd packed Barclays Center to watch what might have been LeBron James\u2019 last game in New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,247,4034,1698,300,4044,185,251,150,4033,4043,562,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-581051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn-nets","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-lakers","12":"tag-lakers","13":"tag-lalakers","14":"tag-lebron-james","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-losangeleslakers","19":"tag-michael-porter-jr","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116010371364952441","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581051","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=581051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}