For the Nets, the endgame was pretty galling.<\/p>\n
But for their tanking efforts, the end result was pretty good.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn blew a huge late lead and fell 115-110 to tanking rival Indiana before a crowd of 16,779 at Barclays Center on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Indiana\u2019s Jarace Walker, who scored a game-high 23 points, looks to make a move on Ben Saraf during the Nets\u2019 115-110 loss to the Pacers on Feb. 11, 2026 at Barclays Center. AP<\/p>\n
After the Nets starters built an 18-point cushion, their bench squandered it. <\/p>\n
And once rookie Egor D\u00ebmin\u2019s surprisingly clean 3-point look rimmed out in the final second, they\u2019d suffered a vexing come-from-ahead defeat.<\/p>\n
Granted, the Nets (15-38) might have also avoided a Pyrrhic victory. <\/p>\n
They\u2019re still fifth in the lottery standings, but now just a game behind the fourth-place Pacers and second-place Washington. <\/p>\n
They\u2019re two games clear of the sixth-place Jazz, thanks to Utah\u2019s win against Sacramento.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the things we did well, we stopped doing well. Only one good defensive quarter doesn\u2019t help in the NBA,\u201d coach Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cIn the second half we gave up 13 second-chance points, nine fast-break points, and in the third quarter alone we had 11 turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are things we can control, and we weren\u2019t good enough. That\u2019s why we lost. We have higher standards than that, especially on things we can control, and when you get an opportunity you have to play as hard as you can and be locked in. Losing three out of four quarters, you\u2019re not going to win many games.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the Nets had blown an 82-64 lead midway through the third, Day\u2019Ron Sharpe had a steal and layup to knot the game at 110-110 with 38 seconds left.<\/p>\n
But Kam Jones \u2014 who had missed all five of his attempts from deep to that point \u2014 hit a prayer 3-pointer with seven seconds left to put the Nets in a 113-110 hole. <\/p>\n
And despite getting free for a clean look, D\u00ebmin just missed and Indiana iced it at the line.<\/p>\n
Nolan Traore, who scored 20 points, reacts after scoring a bucket during the Nets\u2019 loss to the Pacers at Barclays Center. Robert Sabo for New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an amazing play. Knowing their coverage, I knew it would be a good shot for me unless they changed something. I\u2019m really upset it didn\u2019t go in, but I\u2019ve got to move on,\u201d said D\u00ebmin, who had 13 points, five assists and five rebounds. \u201cI\u2019ll probably sit with it a little over the break, but then think about the next games.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brooklyn played without starters Nic Claxton, Noah Clowney and Michael Porter Jr. Rookie Nolan Traore had 20 points and eight assists in another big night, albeit five of the 16 Nets turnovers. <\/p>\n
Still, the rookies were encouraging, with 65 of the Nets\u2019 110 points. But the bench as a whole did Brooklyn in.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn reeled off eight unanswered points to pad the cushion to 82-64 midway through the third. <\/p>\n
Day\u2019Ron Sharpe goes up for a layup during the Nets\u2019 loss to the Pacers at Barclays Center. Robert Sabo for New York Post<\/p>\n
Sharpe (season-high 19 points, 12 rebounds, five assists) kicked out to Ziaire Williams for a 3-pointer that gave the Nets their biggest lead of the evening.<\/p>\n
It was still 86-70 after Traore\u2019s skip pass to Williams with 4:31 left in the third. But Brooklyn couldn\u2019t protect that lead, helplessly watching it bleed away.<\/p>\n
The Nets conceded an extended 30-11 run that spanned the third and fourth. And all but six points of that came with the reserves on the floor.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn had an 86-73 lead when the starters went out with three minutes left in the third. <\/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 was tied 97-all when Traore, D\u00ebmin and Sharpe checked back in, the bench on the wrong side of a 24-11 blitz.<\/p>\n
Micah Potter (19 points, 12 boards) put the Pacers ahead at the line, and his putback dunk made it 100-97 with 7:11 left.<\/p>\n
Traore tied it at 105-105 on a high-difficulty turnaround in the lane, and a D\u00ebmin corner 3-pointer put the Nets back ahead 108-106 with 2:04 to play.<\/p>\n
Sharpe had a steal and layup to knot it at 110-110 with 38 seconds left, but Jones\u2019 3-pointer with seven seconds remaining turned out to be the winner.<\/p>\n
Jarace Walker led the Pacers with a game-high 23 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of it was just being careless,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cStarting with me, we all have to be better.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the Nets, the endgame was pretty galling. But for their tanking efforts, the end result was pretty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,227,126,6,671,3027,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-598607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-egor-demin","13":"tag-indiana-pacers","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nets","16":"tag-ny-sports-minute","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116057006637253035","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598607","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=598607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}