Cold second quarter buries Nets in Miami as losing streak stretches to 9
· Yahoo Sports
The Nets didn’t get a chance to exhale in South Florida. The temperature went up, but the execution didn’t.
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Brooklyn fell to the Miami Heat 124-88 Tuesday night at Kaseya Center, a loss that dropped the Nets to 15-46 and stretched their season-worst skid to nine games. Brooklyn won’t have to wait long for a rematch, though. The Nets will remain in Miami and face the Heat again Thursday, which means whatever lessons were available in this one need to be learned fast.
Bam Adebayo led the Heat with 23 points. Tyler Herro added 22, and Jaime Jaquez Jr. scored 20 points off the bench. Noah Clowney led Brooklyn with 17 points and seven rebounds.
Miami opened with a 7-0 punch, and it took Nolan Traoré’s 3-pointer with 9:38 left in the first quarter to get Brooklyn on the board. That shot mattered, not just because it stopped the bleeding, but because it finally gave the Nets something steady to grab onto. They settled in, played with more pace and found some rhythm offensively. It just didn’t last.
Adebayo poured in 11 quick points, but the Nets responded by shooting 50% in the opening quarter. Danny Wolf gave Brooklyn a clean lift with seven points on 3-for-3 shooting, the kind of simple production that kept things from spiraling early. The problem was everything around it, namely the whistle. Brooklyn got a little too handsy, the free throws piled up, and Miami’s 7-for-8 start at the line was the difference in a quarter where the Heat shot 48% and still carried a 34-28 lead.
That edge quickly turned into something heavier. Brooklyn’s offense went cold in the second quarter. The Nets shot 27.3% as a team as the game started to fade possession by possession. Traoré scored a team-high seven points in the quarter, but it came on 2-for-7 shooting. Meanwhile, Jaquez and Andrew Wiggins made it look easy, combining for 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting.
The drought that really defined the night came late in the half. The Nets managed just one field goal in the final 5:47 of the second quarter, and the lone bucket was Traoré’s second 3-pointer of the first half, his second make in as many tries. That shot trimmed the margin to 65-52, but Miami still carried a 15-point lead into the break.
Traoré led Brooklyn at halftime with 12 points on 4-for-9 shooting, but he didn’t record an assist in the first half or for the game, another sign of how choppy the Nets’ offense had become. On the other end, the Heat had four players already in double figures. Adebayo had 15 points, Herro had 15, and Jaquez and Wiggins each had 13, as Miami shot 53.2% for the half.
The Nets were better defensively in the third, at least enough to keep the game from exploding right away. Brooklyn held the Heat to 39.1% shooting in the period. The trouble was the Nets could not match it with their own execution, shooting 33.3% and getting outscored 22-21 anyway. Ziaire Williams finished with 16 points and provided a needed jolt off the bench with six points in the third quarter, but the rest of the offense never fully woke up.
The fourth quarter started with the Nets still staring at a 91-75 deficit, still needing a clean run that never came. With 5:09 left, Adebayo scored again to give Miami its largest lead of the night at 25 points.
Brooklyn shot 38.4% for the game, went 6-for-32 from 3-point range and committed 19 turnovers, which turned into 20 points for the Heat.
The Nets played shorthanded again. Egor Dëmin remained out, Drake Powell remained on G League assignment and Dëmin’s absence gave Terance Mann his second straight start. Grant Nelson, a 10-day contract signee who provided an instant spark off the bench in his last time out, played just three minutes against Miami.