English
Español
More of the same. The Brooklyn Nets came home following a three game road trip to take on the Dallas Mavericks. Brooklyn lost their fifth game in a row as the Mavs came away with a 123-114 win. In the race that most everyone cares about, the Nets are third. Either way, these games will draw plenty of interest down the stretch.
The opponent tonight is the hottest team in the NBA. If everything holds up, the San Antonio Spurs will have homecourt advantage in a playoff series for the first time in a decade once the NBA playoffs start this spring. They’ve been on a huge tear recently and pushed their winning streak up to ten games with a gritty win over the Toronto Raptors last night. The Spurs are now two games behind the Oklahoma City Thunder for the one seed and best record in the NBA. Wow.
Where to follow the game
YES Network on TV. WFAN on radio. Gotham Sports on streaming. Tip after 7:30 PM.
Injuries
All clear for the Nets. This is the third time in the past eight games that the Nets have had a clean injury slate. Also, it’s possible that we will see Josh Minott, the 6’8” 3-and-D candidate acquired from Boston at the deadline make his Nets debut. He’s been with Long Island along with Ben Saraf who’s staying out in Uniondale for this one, as are the Nets three two-ways.
Mason Plumlee is out.
The game
San Antonio won the first meeting back in October.
The Spurs are on the back end of a back-to-back while the Nets are on the front end of a back-to-back. As the beat of the NBA season rolls on.
Egor Dёmin is working through a slump. He’s shot under 40 percent from the field in six out of the last eight games, and the stress of the NBA season is starting to take its toll. He recently spoke about the transition to the NBA and gave some interesting answers:
“This is something I’m really trying to focus on a lot, just trying to get better at this, from the standpoint of toughness: mental, more than physical, because the physical part. I can’t really do more than I’m able, than my ability. So this is something I’m working on in the lifting room; trying to get stronger, looking at my nutrition.
“[The trainers] make my body stronger. But right now, it’s really about my mental, physicality, where I can resist every single player on the court. And I’m looking for that state of mind where, ‘No, I’m not going to step away from you,’ which obviously it happens sometimes. Sometimes it’s not as good. And that’s a process.”
He’ll get a great test against De’Aaron Fox. Fox missed the first meeting between these two teams. He’s been terrific for the Spurs and as usual, is hell on wheels getting to the rim. He’s one of the league leaders in drives and is shooting 70 percent on shots inside of three feet. Being able to consistently break defenders down off the dribble and create great shots on the inside takes on even more importance in postseason settings, and Fox is eager to get back into the playoffs to showcase what he can do.
Michael Porter Jr mentioned rebounding in postgame on Tuesday, and if the Nets want to pull off the upset, they’re going to need to be better on that end. They’ve been outrebounded in each of their past four games and by double-digits in three of them. The Spurs are seventh in the league in rebounds, but with this being the second leg of the b2b, maybe they’ll be a bit more tired than usual. The Nets need all the help they can get if they want to get back in the win column.
Player to watch: Victor Wembanyama
So technically, Victor is in a slump. The big guy has shot 9-of-28 over the past two games. However, when you do everything else well, you can live with some misses from the field. He’s blocked at least four shots in four consecutive games and is on track to do that again tonight. Even when he’s not obliterating teams on offense, his mere presence presents matchup nightmares for opponents and creates a myriad of challenges. From Jeje Gomez of Pounding the Rock:
The opponents will make adjustments, but as you said, they can only do so much. If they sell out trying to stop Wemby, we now know that the Spurs can simply play through Wemby by using his gravity instead of giving him the ball, which makes a lot of counters simply obsolete. The bigger question is whether the supporting cast can consistently deliver as they did against the Pistons. The ball handlers should be fine. The room to drive was always there, and all three see it. We are well past the stage when only Tre Jones realized that the entire defense was geared toward stopping Wemby. The shooters are the potential issue, but the fact that they were all ready to fire away or move the ball is a good sign.
This team is coming together at an insane speed. There’s a lot of room for growth, which is crazy to say of a group that might end up with the best record in the West, but it’s so fun to watch it happen in real time. The Pistons game really seemed like a breakthrough moment, and even if Victor occasionally goes back to forcing things at times, I do believe he understands that he can have a massive positive effect without having to drop 30 by driving into traffic and hitting off-balance shots. I’m excited to see if they can continue to have these mini leaps before the playoffs, because if they do, we might enjoy a deep playoff run sooner than expected.
For a lot of the Spurs, this represents their first real crack at contention. It’ll be exciting to see how they continue to build from here.
Nic Claxton will have his hands full.
From the Vault
Ric Flair turned 77 years old yesterday. Let’s revisit two of the Nature Boy’s greatest matches
More reading: Pounding the Rock, SB Nation NBA, New York Post, New York Daily News, Clutch Points, Nets Wire, Steve’s Newsletter
- Brooklyn Nets Game Notes – Brooklyn Nets
- San Antonio Spurs Game Notes – San Antonio Spurs
- San Antonio plays Brooklyn on 10-game win streak – AP
- Michael Porter Jr.’s four-game dip doesn’t rewrite season with Nets ($) – C.J. Holmes – New York Daily News