NBA News NBA News, Match Reports and Updates 
The Brooklyn Nets are still looking for a defensive identity, offensive consistency, and of course, their first win of the season. The Indiana Pacers had no interest in aiding the search Sunday evening.
Brooklyn started with the same five again tonight. Held out for back injury maintenance, Mikel Brown Jr. wasn’t even an option.
Advertisement
The Net defense was a mixed bag in the first. The team did well getting into the Pacer passing lanes, coming away with seven steals in the period. While Keon Ellis was the lead bandit out there today, coming away with four, Josh Minott had a pair as well. He got first half minutes for a second straight game after riding bench for the entirety of the season opener.
However, Brooklyn’s tendency to throw two at the ball paired with Indiana’s collective ability to move the rock also brought trouble.
“Obviously we have to guard better one on one, but also we have to be focused on the details,” Nolan Traoré said. “Like, I mean, they were not doing anything crazy that we didn’t see, so we just have to be better. We can be way better than that.”
While Brooklyn’s defense, particularly around the rim, hasn’t been anything to rave about so far this year, this wasn’t the afternoon to be critical of Mo Wagner and Day’Ron Sharpe. The bigs essentially carried the Nets in the game’s first 15 minutes, combing for 16 points while shooting 6-8 from the field. Wagner was a +9 in his first stint off the bench.
Michael Porter Jr. and Julius Randle had a combined two points on 1-6 shooting during that stretch. So, yeah, they needed that.
Advertisement
Brooklyn still led by a few at the start of and early into the second, but Indiana never let them separate and eventually caught them midway through the frame. They had little success distancing themselves on the scoreboard until the half’s final two and a half minutes, where Indiana hit a flurry of threes to carve out a nine point advantage.
At that point, Randle and Porter Jr. had mustered a combined 12 points, but were still shooting 2-14 from the field. Mo Wagner led Brooklyn with 13 points, going 5-7 inside and 2-2 outside the arc. Ellis and Sharpe…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nets-t-keep-pacers-lose-004641310.html
Author :
Publish date : 2026-10-26 00:46:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
