Nets Collapse in 4th Quarter, Fall to Banged Up Pacers

The Indiana Pacers were down to just nine players in the second half of a back-to-back, but they prevailed, defeating the Brooklyn Nets 115-110.

Jarace Walker paced a well balanced scoring effort from Indiana, putting up 23 points on 9-of-18 shooting.

The Nets jumped out to a 31-18 lead after the first quarter, but the Pacers stuck to their gameplan and won every quarter after that, outscoring Brooklyn 31-20 in the final 12 minutes of play.

"A lot of the things that we did well, we stopped doing well," Nets coach Jordi Fernández said. "Only one quarter of defense doesn't help in the NBA, and then the second half, 13 second-chance points, nine fast break points in the second half, and only in the third quarter, 11 turnovers, and it was not just one player, but many players."

Sometimes defenses can make life difficult for the offense, whether they're wreaking havoc in the passing lanes, pressuring the ball, or staying attached to their man. However, Fernández wasn't ready to buy that as a reason why the Nets turned the ball over as much as they did.

"A lot of them, it was just being careless," Fernández said. "We can afford 14, it was three too many, and three too many, that's the game right there. Same as the second-chance points. You want 10 or less, same as fast break points, 10 or less, and if you add all those up, that's the reason why you lose games, and starting with me, we all have to be better, and I believe we will."

The game was there for the taking for the Nets, as they got solid performances from all of their main contributors with Michael Porter Jr. and Nic Claxton out of the lineup.

Nolan Traoré continues to turn heads, providing 20 points on 8-of-14 shooting and eight assists. His ability to touch the paint opened up clean looks for many of his teammates behind the arc or at the rim, especially Egor Dëmin.

Dëmin had a couple of opportunities to tie or give the Nets the lead in the last minute of the game with a couple of clean 3-point attempts, but it was not to be. However, he still managed to put up 13 points and hit three of his seven shot attempts from downtown.

Day'Ron Sharpe also stepped up for Claxton nicely, finishing with 19 points on 8-fo-11 shooting, 12 rebounds, and five assists.