Nets never recover from early Hornets surge in another lopsided home loss
NEW YORK — The Brooklyn Nets blinked once Tuesday night and the Charlotte Hornets took the game. Charles Lee’s group ripped off a 13-0 run in the opening minutes at Barclays Center, and Brooklyn spent the rest of the night chasing in an 117-86 loss. The Nets fell to 18-58 and trailed by as many as 35 points in a game that was over before it ever truly began.
With six games left, Brooklyn remain in third place in the NBA draft lottery race. The absences were the first thing working against Brooklyn, and they showed up in the way the game opened. The Nets played without Michael Porter Jr.
, Egor Dëmin, Day’Ron Sharpe, Danny Wolf and Terance Mann. Charlotte’s roster was healthy, and it looked like it from the jump. That 13-0 Hornets run turned a 4-3 game into a 16-4 hole in a matter of minutes, with Brandon Miller going 2 for 2 from 3-point range and LaMelo Ball starting 2 for 5.
Brooklyn didn’t have the offensive structure to absorb it, and defensively, the Nets couldn’t slow Charlotte down once the Hornets got comfortable. The numbers were already ugly by the end of the first quarter. Brooklyn shot 35% from the field and scored just 18 points, nearly getting outscored by Miller alone.
He poured in 16 points on 5-for-5 shooting while playing the entire period, and it was already a 17-point game entering the second. The Nets did show some push in the middle of the game, even if they never truly threatened. Offense remained hard to find outside of a pair of six-point bursts from Nolan Traoré and Josh Minott, but Brooklyn at least tightened up defensively in the second quarter.