Brooklyn Nets: 5 takeaways from making shambles of 76ers

3. LeVert held the fort down early

Caris LeVert didn’t score a lot in the second half — he had just two points after the break — but he didn’t have to. His Brooklyn Nets teammates heated up and carried the load.

It was awfully nice of them to do that, because LeVert’s back had to be sore from carrying his teammates through most of the first half.

LeVert absolutely kept the Nets in the game early with his scoring, as he had 18 points in the first half on 7-of-14 shooting — a half in which the rest of his teammates combined to shoot 32.5 percent (13-for-40).

His 20 points matched his season average coming into the game.

LeVert may not have won the game for Brooklyn — games aren’t often won in the first half. But what he did is keep them from falling into a gigantic hole.

Between LeVert’s scoring and Philadelphia’s shoddy ball-handling in the first half, the Nets were able to take a 51-47 lead into the break, despite the 76ers shooting 51.7 percent from the floor to Brooklyn’s 37 percent mark.

After LeVert’s huge 16 minutes in the first half, the rest of the guys took over from there and turned the game into a rout.