Brooklyn Nets: Player grades from an Indiana thrashing

The Brooklyn Nets stepped up in competition level Saturday night and it didn’t go well in a 132-112 loss to the Indiana Pacers. Here are the player grades.

After splitting games with a pair of non-playoff teams from last season, the Brooklyn Nets encountered a bigger challenge Saturday night when they visited the Indiana Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The Pacers steadily pulled away en route to a 132-112 blowout victory.

The Nets (1-2) hung with the Pacers (2-1) early and in the second quarter, put together a 17-5 run to take a late lead in the first half. Indiana answered with a closing burst of its own, outscoring Brooklyn 14-2 in the final 4:07 of the half to open a 67-58 lead at the break.

Things started to get away from the Nets in the third quarter. Indiana got the lead into double digits before the Nets made a short rally to get it back to seven at 76-69 on a driving floater by D’Angelo Russell.

The Pacers led by as much as 13 in the period, but the Nets chipped away to get it back to eight when Allen Crabbe hit the first of two free throws. He missed the second, but Rodions Kurucs grabbed the offensive board and then committed a big rookie mistake.

In traffic, Kurucs put the ball on the floor and Tyreke Evans swiped it before storming the length of the court for a layup that put the Pacers lead back at 10, 95-85, entering the fourth.

A 3-pointer by Joe Harris and a drive by Spencer Dinwiddie kept the margin at 10, but then Kurucs went down with a sprained left ankle and had to leave the game.

Harris hit a driving layup to get it back to 99-92 before the Pacers put the hammer down.

Doug McDermott and Bojan Bogdanovic hit back-to-back 3s and the Nets went cold as Indiana put together a game-sealing 19-5 run to push the lead to 21 with 6:37 remaining, at which point coach Kenny Atkinson cleared his bench.

The Pacers shot the ball well, hitting 55.4 percent (51-for-92) to just 47.7 percent for Brooklyn (41-for-86). Indiana was a scorching 66.7 percent from 3-point land (16-for-24), while the Nets countered with a 16-for-37 showing (43.2 percent), but were just 5-for-17 after halftime.

Turnovers bit the Nets hard Saturday night as the Pacers converted 20 Brooklyn miscues into 30 points, while the Nets got 12 points off 11 Indiana turnovers. The Pacers also hammered the Nets in the paint by a 58-40 margin.

Brooklyn had five players inactive on Saturday: DeMarre Carroll (right ankle surgery), Treveon Graham (strained left hamstring), Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (personal), Shabazz Napier (strained right hamstring) and Alan Williams (sprained right ankle). The 12 available players all saw action.

Here are the player grades from the loss.