Nets Get Blown Out By Reigning MVP and Red Hot Bucks
In what was pretty much a blowout loss, the Nets fall 117-97 to the East’s best Milwaukee Bucks. Brooklyn has now lost three straight and is 2-7 in the month of January.
Like any other game there were both some positive and negative takeaways from this one. Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. The most glaring flaw that has plagued the Nets for most of the season is shooting. They just flat out aren’t a good shooting team, and this game was no different. Brooklyn shot 33.3% from the field and 30.6% from behind the arc.
Not to point fingers but Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris Levert and Taurean Prince went a combined 16-55 from the field. They’re the team’s leading scorers.
“They’re the best defensive team in the league, so first of all I give Milwaukee credit. I think we knew it was going to be tough…I thought we played really well in Philly. Tonight you almost have to hit a perfect aim and we didn’t,” said Head Coach Kenny Atkinson. “But I want to continue to help these guys and really help their confidence. We got a good group in there and we’ll come out of this.”
Another deficiency the Nets had last night on the offensive end was with not taking care of the ball. They totaled 17 turnovers, which is two more than their average this season (15.9) that has them ranked 28th in the league. Granted Milwaukee does actually have the best-ranked defense but that’s something you go into this game preparing for.
One positive takeaway from this matchup is the fact that Brooklyn stole the ball away from Milwaukee 11 times. That’s only the seventh time all season that the Nets have had double digit steals. As a result of this, the Bucks had a total of 20 turnovers. They only average 14 a game so Brooklyn was successful at putting pressure on the ball.
Lastly, the Nets hit 94% of their free throw attempts going 16-17 at the line. Yes, they’re free throws but Brooklyn has been inconsistent in that category this year and are ranked 27th in the league.
So all things considered, the Nets can build on some things in terms of production, but moving forward they still have a ways to go as they get ready for this real playoff push with only a few months left in the regular season.
“That’s still the goal, to make the playoffs,” said Kyrie Irving. “When I say ‘see where we end up’ it’s in that 6, 7 [or] 8 spot, put a realistic goal in front of you and really go after it and you’re able to have a focus on the big picture long term. So heading into All-Star break you want to have these good games, these great tests. See what we can learn from them and move forward, and after All-Star break we get everybody back I feel like we’ll be in a better place.”
