{"id":615050,"date":"2026-02-21T03:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T03:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/615050\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T03:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T03:48:17","slug":"brooklyn-nets-get-discarded-by-oklahoma-city-thunder-lose-105-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/615050\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Nets get discarded by Oklahoma City Thunder, lose 105-86"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taking down the Brooklyn Nets doesn\u2019t require much these days. The Oklahoma City Thunder did it tonight without the league MVP, his lead running mate, and the rhythm of recent play. The Nets gave OKC their first game in over a week this evening. Brooklyn, of course, had this one as back-to-back. It was also their second straight game against a title contender richer than them by 20+ wins.<\/p>\n

Essentially, Adam Silver welcomed the Nets back from the All-Star break like Kevin McCallister \u201cwelcomed\u201d the wet bandits into his home that one Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n

The odds against Brooklyn tonight also increased when Nic Claxton landed on the injury report again. He\u2019s still dealing with a sprained ankle he suffered on Thursday. That meant Day\u2019Ron Sharpe, who Thunder fans surely remember from his 25\/15\/5 game last year, would start in his place.<\/p>\n

OKC seemed to bring the best out of Day\u2019Day once more, at least in the game\u2019s early stages. Sharpe scored Brooklyn\u2019s first four points of the night, working well with Nolan Traor\u00e9, who had a far easier time getting into the paint compared to Thursday. Fellow rookie Drake Powell also had a few nice sequences\u2026<\/p>\n

That said, Brooklyn\u2019s best friend in the first had to be the rust still hampering OKC\u2019s offense. The Thunder, who carried the NBA\u2019s second best two-point field goal percentage going into the break (57.7), shot just 23.1% on such shots in the first. The Nets, uncoincidentally, maintained a 23-21 lead after one.<\/p>\n

However, the quiet, slow approaching storm is just as dangerous as the one properly forecasted. Thunder struck in the second, enjoying a 15-3 run that was more than enough to put them in front on the scoreboard.<\/p>\n

Brooklyn, shooting 2-23 from deep in period, looked rattled by it. Even while queuing up high percentage looks, the Nets failed to find nylon over and over again. It took them over eight minutes to make their first field goal in the second. They also had nine turnovers and just three field goals in the frame. Naturally, OKC outscored them there, doing so by a 29-10 margin. They led at the break by an 50-33 one.<\/p>\n

Even for the Nets, those numbers were horrid enough to require some sort of regression\/return to the mean, and the basketball gods paid their debt as soon as play resumed. The Nets put together an 8-0 run in the top half of the third, starting the period 7-11 from the field and 2-3 from deep. They later cut it to 10 with 6:42 to go, and then eight with 2:39 remaining in the period.<\/p>\n

Sharpe and Traor\u00e9 had to have been praying the hardest at halftime. They led the way again with a combined 11 points on 4-5 shooting during that initial stretch. Porter Jr. and Danny Wolf captained the second run. Wolf notched eight points in the period while shooting 4-7 from the field, out-hustling the shorthanded Thunder to his spots on multiple occasions. MPJ added nine points, three assists, and came away with as sneaky a steal as you\u2019ll see from a 6\u201910\u201d guy in the backcourt\u2026<\/p>\n

After putting in just 33 points in the first half, Brooklyn added 34 in the third, and went into the fourth down 77-67.<\/p>\n

But rather than a legitimate comeback, Brooklyn\u2019s efforts were more like car collision warning going from behind, telling OKC to hit the gas. Each time the Nets got within striking distance, the Thunder surged ahead and pushed the lead back to double digits. An 11-3 start to the final frame put them back up 18 with about nine minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

The Nets never pressured OKC again after that. Unlike vs Cleveland, Fern\u00e1ndez kept the starters on the floor for the majority of garbage time, but it mattered not. Brooklyn shot a soft 5-15 from the field through the fourth\u2019s first nine minutes, which simply won\u2019t cut it against most teams, let alone the champs.<\/p>\n

In the end, this was a rather forgettable contest for Brooklyn. They fought enough to keep it from being embarrassing and noteworthy by consequence, but didn\u2019t throw a strong enough punch to ever challenge their opponent. That said, in a season like this, I think we could all use some amnesia.<\/p>\n

Final: Oklahoma City Thunder 105, Brooklyn Nets 86<\/p>\n

Noah Clowney\u2019s first 3-pointer tonight against OKC was the 200th of his career, which adds to his total as the most by a player under 22 years old in franchise history. In his 118th game, he becomes the fastest player in Nets history to reach 200 career 3-pointers.Michael Porter Jr. had 17 points, six rebounds, five assists and two steals at the end of Q3 tonight in Oklahoma City. It is his eighth time logging at least 15 PTS, 5 AST and 5 REB this season; he had seven such games through his first six career seasons.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Nets will head back across the country to face the Atlanta Hawks Sunday afternoon. It\u2019ll be their first look at the Hawks in the post-Trae Young era. The game tips off at 3:30 p.m. EST. After that, Brooklyn will return for a quick two at The Clays before hitting the road again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taking down the Brooklyn Nets doesn\u2019t require much these days. The Oklahoma City Thunder did it tonight without…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,6,671,51809],"class_list":{"0":"post-615050","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-nba","13":"tag-nets","14":"tag-nets-scores"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116106581268482867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615050","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=615050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}