INDIANAPOLIS — The Nets have been terrible in back-to-backs.
Mikal Bridges, already in a funk, has struggled on short rest.
So naturally Bridges brings Brooklyn into a back-to-back Sunday against the Spurs coming off one of his worst games of the season. He had just seven points on 1-for-8 shooting in a blowout loss to the Pacers.
“He had some good looks; gotta convert them. Ran some plays for him; you just got to convert them,” interim coach Kevin Ollie said of Bridges. “You’ve got to be aggressive, but you’ve got to be aggressive in the right way. You can’t be aggressive and just taking shots that’s unexpected. So I’ve got to do a better job, teammates got to do a better job, he’s got to do a better job.”
Ollie said Bridges — one of the best off-ball cutters in the league — would benefit from playing with energy.
“And he can’t hang his head, either. I’m not taking him out if he makes a mistake. He’s able to play through his mistakes and he’s got to understand that this is a good test for him,” Ollie said. “This is an opportunity for him to grow as well.”
Bridges is averaging 16.0 points on 38.1/33.0/75.0 shooting splits over his past 14 games.
Back-to-backs have troubled the Nets all season. They are just 4-7 on the second night of back-to-backs coming into Sunday’s tilt against the Spurs in Austin, Texas.
They actually started out 2–7 before winning their past two: a 112-107 victory against Philadelphia on March 5, and a 120-101 laugher in Cleveland five days later.
Cam Thomas tied a career-high with eight rebounds to go along with his team-high 22 points Saturday.
There are the quirks of the NBA schedule and then there is this.
The Nets went the first 66 games of the slate without playing Indiana a single time, but now are facing the Pacers three times in the last 16 games.
Ben Simmons is out for the season after undergoing a microscopic partial discectomy on Thursday. First-round pick Dariq Whitehead is traveling with the Nets but is also out for the season after having surgery for a shin stress reaction in January. Fellow first-round pick Noah Clowney was called up from Long Island on Saturday morning, logging four scoreless minutes.
Doug McDermott (right calf strain) and Ben Mathurin (labral tear in his right shoulder) were out for Indiana.