DeMarre Carroll scored 22 points and eight rebounds in loss to Knicks

Not a good day for the Brooklyn Nets on this Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday holiday. The event started with a pre-game montage of Nets players giving their views on Dr. King and the significance of his life. That was Thing 1, as Chris Hayes says on his MSNBC show, All in With Chris Hayes. Thing 2, the Nets lost to the Knicks 119-104.

The Nets fell to 16-28 this season and 8-13 at Barclays Center with today’s loss, while the Knicks improved to 20-24 overall and 3-11 on the road with the win.

“I thought they did a great job waiting for us at the rim on our drives,” Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson said about the Knicks effort today. “But we do have to do a better job of kicking it out. If they have two guys waiting for us at the rim, we have to make that extra pass. I think we’ve regressed in our ‘making the extra pass’ philosophy and against this team, that’s flood the rim all the time with two bigs, you have to make that extra pass.”

Nets forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson expressed his thoughts on some of the successful things the Nets did tonight, “I think we did a better job at rebounding the first three quarters, the first half especially. I feel like we could have done a better job at keeping them from driving in and fouling them, too.”

For the Nets, DeMarre Carroll scored a team-high 22 points with eight rebounds and three assists in 30 minutes today. Caris LeVert totaled 20 points and seven rebounds in 30 minutes as a Nets’ reserve this afternoon. Hollis-Jefferson recorded 16 points and six rebounds in 26 minutes. Quincy Acy added 13 points off the bench and Joe Harris chipped in 10 points and five rebounds in 23 minutes off the bench.

In the win, Knicks center Kristaps Porzingis led all scorers with 26 points in 27 minutes.

“I just try to slow down mentally and that’s helping,” Porzingas said about his shot selection tonight. “Just not thinking I need to score as much, I just want to be involved and when the shots come I’m gonna take them and those are going to be higher percentage shots. You know, not as many contested shots and not as much me fighting to get the bucket. Just trying to make it easier for myself and I think it’s just mentally, I’m slowing down a little bit and that’s helped me. ”

Knicks rookie point guard Frank Ntilikina, who has been a big concern of many Knicks fans, finished with 10 points and 10 assists in 29 minutes for his first career double-double.

And, Ntilikina’s performance did not get past Porzingas.

“He played great,” Porzingas said congratulating his teammate. “The last few games he wasn’t really in rhythm but tonight you could see that he was pushing the ball and making plays. He was close to that triple-double that I talked about early in the season and you know I still believe that and moving forward as he keeps growing as a player, he will be that type of player.”

Today was the start of the Knicks’ seven-game road trip, the next stop for the Knicks is the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday, January 17.

The Nets will host the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday at the Barclays Center at 7:30 p.m. EST.