Nets Defense Stands Tall in Sunday Night's Win Over Raptors

The Brooklyn Nets came through with a 96-81 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday, a final score that might more closely resemble a game that happened two decades ago.

Brooklyn held Toronto to a paltry 37% shooting from the field, including 28% from 3-point range.

The Nets are 20th in defensive rating on the season, a far cry from some of the better teams on that side of the floor. However, they've turned it up defensively since the calendar flipped to December, ranking second in defensive rating right on the heels of the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder.

Brooklyn has posted two of the three best defensive games of all teams this season, one of them being its most recent win against Toronto.

“It’s credit to the coaches, to find a way to break things down, when we have time to practice, watch film with the players, do their 1-0 work, embracing the defensive end of the floor, and especially the players, because they’re the ones putting the work in and buying into it,” Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez said. “We didn’t start well at all defensively. It was very poor. We didn’t buy into a lot of things. Obviously, we have evolved and made some adjustments, but now it feels like we have a good rhythm with our physicality, with our communication, getting multiple stops in a row and making winning plays.”

Brooklyn's defense held Brandon Ingram to 19 points on 7-of-18 shooting. Noah Clowney drew the primary defensive assignment on Ingram, holding him to 3-of-7 shooting while doing a good job of sticking with him laterally and closing out strong on some of his shot attempts. Clowney's interior defense certainly caught the attention of his head coach as well.

“Noah made unbelievable plays, winning plays at the rim, whether it was to get a block or to go vertical," Fernandez said.

WHAT A BLOCK BY NOAH CLOWNEY pic.twitter.com/2VBmqFJKNV
— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) December 22, 2025

The size and length the Nets have can give the team an advantage on certain nights, but Nic Claxton believes there's room for improvement.

“Our defense has been pretty solid this past month,” Nic Claxton said. “It's been really good. We just gotta keep taking steps in the right direction. We got a lot of switchable defenders. There's are still a lot of areas we can get better. We gotta just keep going.”

Clowney's defensive emergence next to Claxton down low could certainly help the Nets move in the right direction.