Brooklyn Nets: Player grades from a tough night in Detroit

The Caris LeVert breakout talk was not overstated at all.

LeVert had a huge game for the Brooklyn Nets Wednesday night, with his penetrating and scoring helping the Nets get back in the game after the Detroit Pistons blasted out of the tunnel in the second half to take a quick double-digit lead.

LeVert put up 17 of his 27 points in the second half, teaming with Spencer Dinwiddie to probe the paint as Andre Drummond had to back away from their driving lanes because of foul trouble.

Coach Kenny Atkinson basically put the offense in the hands of the guards in the second half and they came very close to pulling off the win.

LeVert did have three turnovers — including one in the paint when he had the ball knocked away from him on a possession where Brooklyn could have regained the lead.

And he didn’t have the deep touch — although outside of (of all people) Jarrett Allen, no one in a white Brooklyn jersey seemed to have that. LeVert missed his only 3-point attempts.

Being respectable from there will only open up more space for him to do what he does best — drive and create.

Spencer Dinwiddie flipped a switch of some sort at halftime and nearly made the team he was drafted by in 2014 pay the price.

Dinwiddie scored 17 of his 23 points in the second half after a choppy start in which he had three turnovers in the first half.

Dinwiddie set the tone by attacking foul-ridden Andre Drummond in the lane for easy buckets at the rim and combined with Caris LeVert to score 50 points overall and 34 of Brooklyn’s 49-point second-half output.

He ran the offense well and it was his hot hand, as much as anything, that prompted coach Kenny Atkinson to leave D’Angelo Russell on the bench for the entire fourth quarter.

It’s nights like these that are going to move Dinwiddie out of the bargain-basement contract bin next summer.