New-look Nets suffer another blowout loss to Knicks, continue to slide following trade deadline deals
Death, taxes and blowout losses. Welcome to the new reality for the new-look Nets in the second half of the 2022-23 NBA season.
The Nets fell to a 34-28 record with Wednesday’s 142-118 loss to the New York Knicks. They now have a 2-6 record in games that followed the Feb. 9 NBA trade deadline and have lost four games in a row — with another expected loss looming in the defending conference champion Boston Celtics, waiting for the Nets on Friday.
More concerning than the number of losses, however, is the nature of defeat in Brooklyn.
The Nets profile as an above average defensive team, but there is a clear drop off from the names on paper to the product on the floor.
That’s because for all the length, athleticism and defensive prowess the Nets gained in the trades that sent Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving out West, they haven’t been able to generate enough stops.
The proof is in the pudding: The Nets have given up 30 or more points in a quarter in 12 of the 16 quarters they’ve played since coming out of the All-Star break. The Nets also allowed the Knicks to score 47 and 34 points in the opening two quarters of Wednesday’s blowout loss at Madison Square Garden. They have been blown out in four of their last six games and came back from down 18 to lose on a Trae Young buzzer beater in Atlanta on Sunday.
There’s even more data suggesting the Nets are worse defensively than meets the eye: Brooklyn entered Wednesday night giving up 122 points per 100 possessions, good for the NBA’s third-worst defensive rating behind only the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets, who own the NBA’s worst record.
On Tuesday, they couldn’t control Giannis Antetokounmpo, an understandable shortcoming given his status as one of the best players in basketball. The following night, however, the Nets gave up 142 points against the Knicks. By the time the numbers settle, the Nets could own the worst defensive rating in all of basketball since the trade deadline.
Compounding matters for a Nets team struggling to string together stops is the pressure to retain playoff standing — along with a strong remaining schedule.
The Nets have fallen behind the Knicks to the Eastern Conference’s sixth seed. If they fall anywhere from seventh to tenth, they will have to play in a sudden-death Play-In Tournament to earn their playoff seeding.
That’s only if the Nets don’t fall to 11th, and they way they have acquitted themselves out of the All-Star break, an extended losing streak is on the table.
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