After taking a trip out to a Charlotte grocery, the Brooklyn Nets found all the ingredients needed to cook up a win last Saturday night. Once purchasing and bagging, they loaded them all up into their car and drove home. They even hit all green lights on their way too.
Then, after arriving, unloading, and stepping up the back stairs, arms full with a higher field goal percentage, break points advantage and stiff defensive performance in the third, they fumbled everything while extending their key out to unlock and open the door.
Even if their delivery guys occasionally get you the orange juice with pulp instead of the one with some pulp, sometimes it’s worth it to just bite your lip and put in an InstaCart order.
Although Brooklyn’s journey vs Los Angeles tonight had no shortage of twists, turns and even bumps on the road, it ended in a far more pleasing way, at least when you tune out all that draft lotterry talk.
In what was their third biggest comeback of the season, Brooklyn wrestled their seven game losing streak to the ground, beating the Lakers tonight by a 111-108 margin. While it might just look like a simple loss for a win transaction, there’s always more to it than that. Here’s what, exactly.
Noah Clowney is Starting to Get his Legs Under Him
With the crazy Nets trade deadline that never was, coupled with returns to the lineup from D’Angelo Russell and Cam Thomas, Noah Clowney’s ankle injury flew somewhat under the radar as the Nets pushed through the bleak midwinter.
The second year man did return over the weekend, but only partially, it would seem. Clowney logged 18 minutes vs the Hornets but never found his way into the scoring column, going 0-of-5 from the field. All his shots came from beyond the arc, though that’s not the first time we’ve seen that from him.
Tonight, he opened the game 0-3, again pulling strictly from three. He didn’t take his first two-point field goal until early in the second quarter. That made five straight quarters of strictly threes.
But it wasn’t just an early inability to find nylon tonight that had Clowney looking out of sync, but the way in which he connected with the iron. Many of the Alabama product’s misses were short — a telltale sign of either fatigue or not having your legs under you yet.
With clowney being just 20-years old and many of those misses coming early in the game tonight, I was willing to bet it was the latter. His play beyond the first quarter argued that as well.
Clowney broke the seal on the rim a few minutes after his eighth straight miss — but he also experimented with other ways of putting the ball through the hoop. Not only did Clowney pull off the highlight below, he also generated seven looks at the line tonight, tied for his most in a game all season.
Clowney also went on to bang two more triples, leading him to a respectable 19-point and five-rebound night after starting 4-of-10 from the field and 3-of-8 from deep. He even contributed to Brooklyn’s collective icing of the win with a timely cut after their ATO play fell apart.
I think I was playing pretty well before I went down, and then when I went down, obviously my first game back wasn’t super strong, so I wanted to get a win more than anything, and I ended up having a good performance in that process,” Clowney said postgame.
“For him to come back and have an impact like he did today, I mean, it’s tough,” added Cam Johnson. “The kid’s 20 years old, he’s young. It’s difficult to come back from being out for a while and to find your flow, and I think it was a little tough on him maybe the first couple minutes out there, but he kept his head up, and stayed with it and made some big play for us tonight.”
Indeed he did. While it’s unlikely we see Clowney tomorrow considering how the Nets treat back-to-backs, look for him to continue building on it vs the Chicago Bulls later in the week.
Keon Johnson had his fewest points in a game all season when logging more than 12 or more minutes last time out. Against the lowly Charlotte Hornets, it’s fair to assume he had hoped for better. Against one of the game’s hotter teams post-trade deadline (again, for an obvious reason), he got that, and just in time to celebrate his Jordan year in front of the only other guy with a claim to that number.
Contributing with 18 points, three assists, and three rebounds while shooting 6-10 from the field and 3-4 from deep, it was a birthday bounce-back for Johnson tonight. The inside-out attack worked for him as he was able to put pressure on the rim and extend the defense with his shot.
KJ’s crisp offensive play translated to the other end as well, as Johnson bothered an all-world guard at the point of attack and beyond for a second time in three games.
