Nets Offense Fails in the 4th Quarter; Johnson and Larkin Miss Key Shots

In the 4th quarter, with a little over a minute left until the end of regulation, Brooklyn Nets Joe Johnson and Shane Larkin missed back-to-back threes that would have cut what was a nine-point, 83-74 deficit to six. Even with a made shot, the Nets would still have had an uphill climb in capturing the win. However, the missed shots put a spotlight on the struggles the Nets have had this season in late-game offensive execution.

On Friday night, Victor Oladipo and Nikola Vucevic each scored 20 points and handed the Nets an 83-77 loss, their ninth straight loss at home and 3rd straight to the Magic.

It was the Nets 3rd straight loss (10-26), losing seven of their last ten games while the Magic (20-17) snapped a four-game losing streak. Once again, making plays late when they matter the most, has doomed the Nets. With 6:48 left in the 4th quarter, Brook Lopez shot a floater off of a penetration feed from Larkin.

He missed, received his own rebound, fought against Vucevic and got a hook-shot to go, tying the contest at 68 all, two of his team-high 17 points. Following the bucket, the Nets were held scoreless from the field for the next five minutes. At the most critical juncture of the game, the Nets would miss their next three shots, commit two turnovers and worst of all, fail to stop Orlando’s youth movement.

Aaron Gordon and Oladipo took turns nailing the coffin, featuring two threes’ from Oladipo and four points from Gordon. Evan Fournier who scored 13 points also added a three in the midst of a 13-2 run until Thaddeus Young stopped the bleeding with the Nets second FG in 5 minutes. During the Magic’s run, Lopez connected on two free-throws while the Nets offense fell flat.

“…In the last quarter, we just couldn’t make a play, couldn’t make a shot and again we come away with a loss,” Nets head coach Lionel Hollins said post-game also claiming that he sounds like a broken record.

To begin the game, the Nets looked like the team that would eventually lose, falling to an early double-digit lead in the first quarter. In the second and third, the Nets found better results. They battled back by increasing their defensive pressure, got out in transition and shot 80 percent from the free-throw line.

They even led by five towards the end of the third and early in the fourth. But they couldn’t hold onto it and the credit goes to the Magic’s defense for not allowing the Nets to build a substantial advantage.

“Our defense got a little bit tighter,” Magic head coach Scott Skiles said following the win. “We were playing so hard on the defensive end that I felt it took a little juice out of our offense. We were getting it up the court a little too slow. The clock winding down on us, but we were able to make a couple of shots and you need to make those.”

According to Young who scored 11 points and nine rebounds, the Nets just have to make plays.

“We just have to execute. Execute, make shots,” Young said post-game. “We had great opportunities at the basket.”

Unfortunately, the Nets had trouble finishing their opportunities at the basket. Another reason why the Nets had trouble stopping Orlando was their 3-point percentages for this game. Oladipo, who led the Magic in made threes with four, and the rest of his team drained 13 threes of 27 attempts, good for 48 percent while the Nets could not match, shooting 31 percent from long-range and 39 percent in field goals.

After another game, another loss, the Nets are stuck asking about the same problems, and in the end, have nothing to show for it.

“It gets frustrating, but you have to keep continuing to push it, keep continuing to push it, keep continuing to play and keep trying take positives from these games, Young added.”

Until the Nets win the fourth quarter, nights like Friday night will continue to occur and it gets even tougher on Monday night when they host the Southwest Division-leading San Antonio Spurs.

With forced turnovers, bad shooting, and Brook Lopez not a huge factor, the Brooklyn Nets struggled against a young and athletic Orlando Magic

On Star Wars night at the Barclays Center, the force was clearly with the Orlando Magic, opposed to the host, Brooklyn Nets. To demonstrate how badly thing went for the Nets, lets skip to the 4th quarter. Nikola Vucevic, Elfrid Payton and the rest of the Magic’s starters sat comfortably on the sidelines while the second unit finished the game because the damage to the Nets had already been done.

A second half surge revolving around defense, steals, and a consistent offensive effort, enabled the Magic to hand the Nets their second straight loss in a convincing fashion, 105-82 on Monday night.

The Magic improved to (13-11) on the season, while the Nets fell to (7-17), their third loss in the last five games.

Prior to tonight's game, Joe Johnson told What’s The 411Sports that the Nets would have to get off to a good start and keep their turnovers down. During the first half of the game, Johnson’s pregame strategy came into fruition. The Nets battled with Orlando, keeping it close and competitive, down by seven entering halftime up 52-45. In the 3rd, it all fell apart for the Nets.

Their offense struggled to keep up with the young and athletic Magic, and turnovers in addition to bad shooting, prevented the Nets from protecting their home-court. Facing an uphill climb in the fourth down by 14 points, the Nets would miss their first four shots, while the Magic enjoyed a 13-4 run, led by Andrew Nicholson who scored 10 of his 15 total points, in the 4th quarter alone.

The Magic converted eight forced turnovers into eight points while the Nets offense couldn’t find their rhythm. Even though six players scored in double-figures for the Nets, Brook Lopez, the team’s best player, on his star wars bobble-head night, wasn’t much of a factor recording 11 points total for the game.

“I definitely take responsibility for this one,” Lopez said post-game. “I felt I was a complete negative for our team. I kind of let us down, pulled us back. I definitely need to be better and know I can be. I was very frustrating.”

Where Lopez struggled, Vucevic, his counterpart flourished. The former USC Trojan scored his team-high 18 points in 27 min, 12 of which came in the 3rd. All 12 of Vucevic’s points helped extend what was a seven-point Magic lead to a double-digit advantage, setting up the second unit, who served as the clean-up crew in the 4th.

Payton, who also had a fine game-scoring 17 points and five assists-torched the Nets on the perimeter. Tobias Harris added 15 points and nine rebounds and Victor Oladipo punched in 10.

For the Nets, Jarrett Jack led all scorers with 15 points and described the Nets locker-room following the loss as “Disappointed.”

“We just didn’t perform with the necessary effort to be competitive in the game,” Jack said. “You do that, you get these embarrassing types of losses.”

Thaddeus Young, who finished his night with 10 points, also acknowledged the Nets lack of effort.

“They just played harder than us.” Young said following the loss. “They played harder than us, and they got to all the loose balls. They got to everything they wanted to do within their sets and they took away a lot of stuff that we wanted to do and forced us into tough, difficult shots that we didn’t make.”

The Nets, as a team, shot 38 percent from the field validating the Magic commitment to defense, a testament to their head coach, Scott Skiles, who lives and breathes it.

When most of your core players are questioning the effort of the team, that’s a problem, and the Nets owning one of the worst records in the league doesn’t make it any better.

Wednesday night, the Nets will host the (14-9) Miami Heat, who are in a two-way tie for first place in the southeast division.