Brooklyn Nets: Player grades from a schooling by the champs
By Phil Watson
The Brooklyn Nets were taken down hard Saturday night by the Golden State Warriors in a 116-100 loss that ended Brooklyn’s 3-game winning streak.
Once the Golden State Warriors got going Saturday night, there was little the Brooklyn Nets could do to stop them en route to a 116-100 loss at Oracle Arena.
The loss marked the end of the Nets’ modest three-game winning streak, but it’s still worth noting that Brooklyn (6-7) is still guaranteed no worse than a split on its current four-game Western Conference road trip — an outcome most fans would have deemed acceptable when it began.
The Nets fell victim to a hot-shooting Warriors club and fell into a trap Golden State set at the defensive end, with Brooklyn’s guards repeatedly going iso after screens when the Warriors began switching everything.
The matchups against Golden State’s bigs looked enticing, but the Warriors did a solid job of sending help to meet the ball-handler in the lane, something the Nets never really adjusted to.
Instead, the ball movement that propelled the Nets to an early six-point lead evaporated and Brooklyn began to turn the ball over more frequently, finishing with 15 giveaways that led to 23 points for the Warriors.
Golden State hit 55.4 percent of its shots (46-for-83) and were 7-of-16 from deep (43.8 percent). The Nets shot just 46.8 percent (36-for-77) and were chilly from 3-point range at 7-for-24 (29.2 percent).
Everyone who was active for the Nets played Saturday night as the game turned into a rout in the third quarter and Brooklyn coach Kenny Atkinson emptied the bench early in the fourth.
Treveon Graham (strained left hamstring) remained inactive, while Dzanan Musa (on assignment), Theo Pinson and Alan Williams (both on two-way contracts) are currently with the NBA G League’s Long Island Nets.
Here are the player grades from a tough final act at Oracle Arena, which the Warriors will abandon in favor of a new facility in San Francisco next season.