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<\/p>\nThe Brooklyn Nets lost another game on Monday night, this time at home to the Portland Trail Blazers. Trailing by over 20 points in the first half and then by 31 in the third quarter, the outcome was never really in doubt, save for a wonky fourth quarter where the visitors \u2014 who played in Philadelphia the night before \u2014 briefly forgot how to play basketball, shooting half their lead in the foot.<\/p>\n
The Nets started three rookies next to Ziaire Williams and Nic Claxton, and though little can be gleaned from the veterans in a very March game such as this, this size discrepancy between Claxton and 7\u20192\u201d Blazers center Donovan Clingan was my big takeaway. That\u2019s not exactly why the Nets were immediately down big \u2014 the Blazers shot 5-of-8 from three to open the quarter \u2014 but they also grabbed five o-boards (Clingan had three) to Brooklyn\u2019s one. Clingan had multiple plays where he contested the rim before also preventing the Nets from getting on the glass, another solemn reminder of Claxton\u2019s long-term limitations.<\/p>\n
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That said, Claxton did have his dunk of the year in this one, off an alley-oop\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026and finished with a 12-and-11 double-double, doing some damage while Clingan sat on the bench with foul trouble before predictably sitting out the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Just as in Philadelphia, though, Brooklyn\u2019s bench impressed more than the starters, and may have deserved to close this one even if the Nets were earnestly trying to win. Ben Saraf (the only Nets first-round rookie who didn\u2019t start) scored ten of his 15 points in the final frame, saving what had previously been an uninspiring night. With an NBA-record three Israelis (Saraf, Deni Avdija, and Danny Wolf via naturalization) playing in this one, Saraf got plenty of crowd support in this one.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt was great. I was waiting for this game a long time.\u201d said Saraf postgame.<\/p>\n
Wolf had a particularly rough start offensively in this one and finished with 8\/5\/4 on 3-of-9 shooting, while the All-Star Advija didn\u2019t have his best game either, putting up 18\/6\/5 on 4-of-13 shooting and plenty of trips to the line. No matter, the Blazers didn\u2019t need a heroic effort from any one player, shooting 51% from the floor and 42% from three in this one. If they hadn\u2019t turned it over six times in the first six minutes of the fourth quarter, they might\u2019ve secured an even bigger win.<\/p>\n
Credit, however, to the feisty Nets. Tyson Etienne also scored 15 points, one off his career-high. Playing without a true back-up five, E.J. Liddell and Chaney Johnson took turns screening and playing the DHO game, and it was the 6\u20197\u201d Johnson that stood out. He hit a couple pick-and-pop threes, he crashed the glass with aplomb, and finished with 17\/9\/1 on 6-of-8 shooting, including five o-boards and two 3-pointers in a career night.<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez heaped praise on the two-way player, postgame: \u201cHe plays bigger than what he is. His length, you know, he may get overlooked, but he can guard almost everybody. He is super active, super athletic. He can shoot the three, like, he does everything well, and he doesn\u2019t try to do too much, and I think that always helps. You see that every time he\u2019s on the court, it\u2019s positive \u2026 these games are not wasted. These games are for us to see, you know, how these guys take advantage of their minutes, how much better they can get.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI try my best to play as hard as I can,\u201d said Johnson. \u201cSo I mean, you know, the 5 is lot of pick-and-pops, pick-and-roll, short rolls, trying to get everybody else involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sadly, this may not be the bright spot Nets fans are hoping for in these low-stakes spring games. Drake Powell and Nolan Traore combined to shoot just 2-of-14 in this one. Powell missed rim on his first two 3-pointers, while Traore was overwhelmed dealing with Clingan inside.<\/p>\n
On Traore, Fern\u00e1ndez said, \u201cHe looks exhausted, and more than physically, mentally. And [this is] something that is good for him to go through it and understand how much, like, stronger he needs to get, and understand what it is to play almost every other night, and all those things, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Right indeed, though a process that will certainly test Nets\u2019 fans patience. We should all be used to that by now, right? Only 14 games left.<\/p>\n
Final Score: Portland Trail Blazers 114, Brooklyn Nets 95<\/p>\n
Milestone Watch<\/p>\n
Chaney Johnson scored a total of 18 points in his first four NBA appearances before scoring 17 in this one. The highlight of his young career, by any definition.<\/p>\n
As previously mentioned, 15 points mark Tyson Etienne\u2019s season-high, one off his career-high.<\/p>\n
Nic Claxton recorded his 11th double-double of the season and the 87th of his career, passing Sam Bowie for the eighth-most in Nets franchise history.<\/p>\n
In addition to his 15 points, Ben Saraf recorded four steals. He is the first Nets rookie with 4+ steals in a game since David Duke Jr. on 2\/8\/22 vs. BOS.<\/p>\n
It was the 11th time the Nets lost a game wire-to-wire, worst in the NBA.<\/p>\n
It was also the 11th time that Nets have gone down by 30 points in a game this season, the most since 1995-96.<\/p>\n
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Tankathon Update<\/p>\n
The Washington Wizards lost their 12th straight on Monday, while the Pacers are on a baker\u2019s dozen. Yeesh. However, the Sacramento Kings have caught fire, winning two straight and three-of-four. So\u2026<\/p>\n
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Tankathon.com<\/p>\n
Injury Report<\/p>\n
The Brooklyn Nets were short-handed on Monday night, but not too short-handed given the circumstances. In addition to Egor D\u00ebmin and Day\u2019Ron Sharpe, whose seasons are already over, Noah Clowney missed the game with rest, Terance Mann with left achilles soreness, and Michael Porter Jr. with an ankle sprain.<\/p>\n
It was MPJ\u2019s third straight absence with the ankle sprain, and though Brooklyn has not revealed how severe the injury, Jordi Fern\u00e1ndez discussed his leading scorer\u2019s health pregame: \u201cYeah, not qualified to talk about grades [of sprains], but I can share with you that he did form shooting last game that we played, and today is going to be his first workout. So let\u2019s see how he feels after. It\u2019s getting better, and then we\u2019ll assess.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Joshua Gateley\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The MVP is in town. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City visit Barclays Center as the Nets continue their homestand. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brooklyn Nets lost another game on Monday night, this time at home to the Portland Trail Blazers.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,3519,601,247,18503,1042,980,974,997,6297,227,562,6,2728,3805,3545,475,114,678,687,471,3967,477,209,7290,4498,1617,26847,468,4610],"class_list":["post-662782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-portland-trail-blazers","tag-basketball","tag-ben-saraf","tag-blazers","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-chaney-johnson","tag-danny-wolf","tag-deni-avdija","tag-donovan-clingan","tag-drake-powell","tag-e-j-liddell","tag-egor-demin","tag-michael-porter-jr","tag-nba","tag-nic-claxton","tag-noah-clowney","tag-nolan-traore","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-pacers","tag-philadelphia","tag-portland","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-portlandtrailblazers","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-terance-mann","tag-the-blazers","tag-trail-blazers","tag-tyson-etienne","tag-washington-wizards","tag-ziaire-williams"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662782","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=662782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}