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Brooklyn Nets beat Toronto Raptors 96-88 to snap six-game losing streak

It was a rough watch, but the Nets are in no position to complain about a win. After all, we got to watch the rookies!

By Lucas Kaplan
/ new

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Brooklyn Nets v Toronto Raptors Photo by Vaughn Ridley/NBAE via Getty Images

The Brooklyn Nets and Toronto Raptors participated in a March Madness classic on Monday night.

And while the NBA’s version of early spring basketball does inch closer to the NCAA’s in terms of quality, the stakes couldn’t be more different. With the Nets entering Monday night five-and-a-half games out of the Play-In race, acceptance has set in on their underwhelming season.

There are no more visions of a Play-In push, no more spirited vows to turn this ship around. It is what it is. As a result, Brooklyn traveled up north with a couple of goals.

The first: Play the young guys.

The Nets were missing Cam Johnson (big toe), Dennis Smith Jr. (hip), and Cam Thomas, a late scratch with lower back stiffness...

The highlight of Monday’s game was undoubtedly the extended minutes Head Coach Kevin Ollie gave rookies Jalen Wilson and Noah Clowney, not to mention 21 minutes for Trendon Watford and two-way player Jacob Gillard’s first appearance of the season.

And while Watford showed out with a season-high 19 points, including a couple 3-pointers, the rookies owned most of the excitement.

Wilson started for the second time in his career, scoring 12/5/2 on 4-of-10 shooting, while Clowney played 21 minutes off the bench. The 19-year-old Alabama product played both the ‘4’ and the ‘5’ while recording a block, and all of his seven points were loud. He hit a clutch 3-pointer, and threw down a couple of highlight dunks...

“If y’all watched the game, how he plays defense is phenomenal,” said Ollie of Brooklyn’s 2023 first-round pick. “He’s like another Nic [Claxton] out there that can play guards, can get through screens. I mean, his defense was phenomenal and that sticks out to me more than threes and the dunks.”

So, by any measure, Brooklyn’s first objective was a success, and Ollie’s youthful rotations gave fans something to get excited (or at least intrigued) about, a rarity at this point in the season.

Their other objective? Get a god-forsaken win. The Nets and Raptors met with a pair of season-long losing streaks; Brooklyn had lost six in a row, Toronto had lost ten, and was missing even more of their regular rotation members than their opponent. For both teams, this was a golden opportunity.

And while the Nets jumped out to a steady lead in the first half, they never seemed ready to put the game away. Brooklyn committed 18 turnovers, including 11 between Mikal Bridges and Watford, which robbed them of the ability to find any consistent groove on offense. Bridges’ performance in particular was tough to watch, as he resigned himself to the perimeter when he wasn’t throwing the ball away: 12 of his 15 shot attempts were threes, and he scored just 13 points.

But Bridges wasn’t the only eye sore out there. Really, ugliness defined the night, unsurprising for a game featuring so many fringe players that had hardly played together. If you thought Brooklyn’s 23.1% 3-point shooting was bad, well, it was, but then how would you describe the Raps shooting 18.5% from deep?

The setting, the competition, and even their own players were much different than in Brooklyn’s previous six losses, but when Toronto closed the third quarter on a 9-2 run to take a 69-68 lead going into the fourth quarter, it just felt like more of the same.

It wouldn’t be. Dennis Schröder enacted his revenge on his former team, hitting back-to-back buckets down the stretch to tie Watford as Brooklyn’s leading scorer with 19 points on the night, though he also chipped in seven assists.

“We called the same play over and over again down the stretch,” said Kevin Ollie, “and Dennis took care of the ball and got into the lane.”

Schröder got some help in the form of Nic Claxton, who scored just nine points but dominated the interior down the stretch, finishing with 16 rebounds, including five on the offensive end. Overall, Brooklyn grabbed a whopping 16 o-boards, all of which helped mitigate their horrid outside shooting and turnover numbers.

Said Ollie of his team’s effort: “I’m just very proud of our guys, how they stepped up and you know, they just did a great job staying in the fight and not letting go of the rope tonight. No matter how many runs they got, we always stayed together.”

No, this game won’t go down in the history books, emblematic of a March game in which neither team had much to lose. But the Nets didn’t act like they had nothing to play for, even with Clowney and Wilson getting significant burn. The two rookies weren’t treated like charity cases either, both comfortably winning their minutes.

Putting aside the watchability of Monday’s game, it was about all Nets fans could ask for from a team that is now 27-44. The young guys hooped, and it led to a much-needed victory that brightened the mood, no small accomplishment. Brooklyn’s head coach is not going to dismiss it, either.

“I told these guys when I was in there, it’s hard to win in the NBA. We see that, so celebrate it, we’re going to get a nice team dinner, wine is gonna take a little bit better and then we’re gonna get there and go to Washington tomorrow.”

Milestone Watch

A few individual milestones for a few opportunistic individuals.

  • Trendon Watford’s 19 points marked a season-high, and he did it efficiently on 7-of-10 shooting.
  • Nic Claxton registered his 34th double-digit rebound game of the season after recording 33 double-digit rebound games last season (62 games played vs. 76 games played).
  • In the second start of his rookie season, Jalen Wilson reached double figures for the third time in his NBA career.

Gambling scandal rocks Raptors

The Toronto Raptors may have committed even greater disrespect to James Naismith’s game than their on-court display on Monday night.

About an hour before the game, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski posted this...

...and a follow-up story that is pretty damning of Porter.

Per Woj, the NBA is investigating two games that Porter exited early, one after re-aggravating an eye injury, and one with an illness. In each case, the ‘unders’ on his individual prop bets (e.g. under 4.5 rebounds, under 6.5 points, etc.) not only cashed for bettors, but, “The next day, DraftKings Sportsbook reported in a media release that Porter’s prop bets were the No. 1 moneymaker from the night in the NBA.”

In other words: The 11th-most important player on a bad team leaves two games early, and bettors make swaths of cash. If you’re thinking that this is too obvious, too unbelievably stupid to be true and that surely something is missing, well, yeah. It’s bad.

Will the NBA examine their own institutional relationship to sports-betting, which grows stronger by the day? It seems unlikely. Porter may be in for a world of trouble, but it’s hard to say he doesn’t deserve whatever is coming his way.

Next Up

Washington Wizards v Miami Heat Photo by Eric Espada/NBAE via Getty Images

The Brooklyn Nets wrap up their tour of the Leastern Conference by facing the Washington Wizards, who are on a three-game win-streak! Tip-off from D.C. is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday night.

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