Nets Lose Last Home Game of the Year to Their Cross-Town Rival Knicks: Here's Why

After one of the worst shooting performances of this year for Brooklyn, the Nets fall 94-82 to the Knicks to lose their first game this season against their cross-town rival at Barclays Center the day after Christmas.

Quite frankly it was just one of those games where there seemed to be a lid on the basket for the Nets. As per usual, Spencer Dinwiddie was the leading scorer with 25 points. However even he struggled shooting as he only made five of his 15 shots.

The Nets’ second leading scorer was Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot, who scored 10 points in 20 minutes. He averages 3.1 PPG and 14.2 MPG.

The Knicks on the other hand had four players score in double digits: Julius Randle (33), Marcus Morris Sr. (22), Elfrid Payton (13) and Mitchell Robinson who notched a double-double off the bench with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

“He [Robinson] was outstanding. He made some tough shots [and] shot the ball well. I thought he played with poise,” said Knicks Interim Head Coach Mike Miller. “He rebounded the ball and I thought he played a great game.”

Robinson wasn’t the only bench contributor either. Both the starters for the Nets and the Knicks grabbed 34 rebounds, but the Knicks’ bench outrebounded the Nets’ bench 26-16.

However that’s not even the most standout statistic of the night. The Knicks played very tough defense and made the Nets work for every one of their shots that they did manage to make. In the box score this mostly showed in the paint.

The Nets are currently ranked 3rd in the league in points in the paint per game (52.6 PPG) but going by their matchup against the New York last night you wouldn’t be able to tell that. The Knicks totally forced them off their game as they outscored the Nets 36-14 down in the paint. Yes, you read that right. Brooklyn only made a fourth of their high percentage average shots.

The offensive struggles for Brooklyn didn’t stop in the paint however. For the final box score the Nets sot 26% both from the field and from behind the arc.

That pretty much sums up the night the Nets had in general as it seemed as though they were playing a game of catch up for the majority of the contest. At the half the Nets were only down five (46-41) and by the end of the third quarter they were down by an even bigger margin (79-61).

From this point on it was officially a lost cause for Brooklyn.

The final score was 94-82 and they are now 6-5 in December compared to when they went 9-6 in November.

To make things worse, The Nets were on the wrong side of history last night as their 8 two-point field goals are the fewest by a team since 1950.

“We were really locked in. Very sharp,” said Knicks’ Julius Randle. “We came in and executed and had a great mental focus of our game plan…this is a good offensive rebounding team and we rebounded and finished our possessions and that allowed us to hold them to 82 points, which is really good for this team.”