Nets enter All-Star break after their worst loss since moving to Brooklyn
Nets players watch from the bench while trailing the Celtics during the second half of an NBA game Wednesday in Boston. Credit: Charles Krupa
BOSTON — The Nets didn’t think they’d limp into the All-Star break. Not with Cam Johnson back to give them their healthiest lineup of the season.
But limp they did after Wednesday’s 136-86 loss to the Celtics at TD Garden. Even for a team that’s swooned over the past two months, it was a historic low.
It was the Nets’ worst margin of defeat since the team moved to Brooklyn in 2012, surpassing two 44-point losses. It’s also the second worst loss in franchise history behind the then-New Jersey Nets losing by 52 to the Rockets on Oct. 18, 1978.
“They just outplayed us. If we would have lost by one, it would have been the same way,” Dennis Schroder said. “A loss is a loss of course. They kicked our [butt] tonight.”
If the Nets (21-33) were looking ahead to time off for a week, they showed it with a performance lacking effort or focus. They had a season-low 32 points in the first half. They trailed by 37 in the first half and 46 at the end of the third quarter.
The Celtics (43-12) led by 56 in the fourth quarter as their reserves poured it on. Although Boston owns the NBA’s best record, the Nets had little excuse for not matching their physicality or giving up a 22-0 run in the second quarter over a seven-minute span.
Both teams played Tuesday in Brooklyn yet only one group resembled what they showed 24 hours before.
“You talk about these games going into the break and sometimes where they can look like your entire focus and concentration isn’t on every possession and the game itself,” coach Jacque Vaughn said. “[The Celtics are] too good of a team to not be totally engaged and locked in from start to finish. And because of that we paid for it and paid for it in a difficult way.”
Celtics guard Peyton Pritchard had 28 points off the bench, one fewer than the entire Nets starting lineup.
Derrick White had 27 points and Jayson Tatum, who scored 41 points Tuesday, followed up with 20 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.
The Nets played without Ben Simmons, who sat out the second night of a back-to-back. Vaughn said that plan won’t change anytime soon, but the Nets missed their point guard.
It’s been a common theme since Simmons’ return that the Nets look like their idealized uptempo selves with him running the offense, but slower and disjointed without him. Schroder, who made his first start in three games with the Nets, struggled with just four points and three assists.
“It’s tough for Dennis because he hasn’t been here,” Mikal Bridges said. “So it’s like, he doesn’t know and then kind of, off that, now we’re running around, spacing’s bad and then it goes from there.”
Bridges had just 10 points. No other Net reached double figures until Trendon Watford made a jumper with 6:15 remaining. Watford finished with a team-high 15 points.
The Celtics were actually shorthanded with Jaylen Brown and Al Horford out. They weren’t missed as the Nets fell behind 14-4 in the first quarter and things only got worse.
The Celtics shot 22-for-44 on three-pointers and shot 57.8% overall from the field.
On the surface, the Nets were woefully outplayed for the second consecutive day by the NBA’s best team. But deeper than that, they’ve lost 18 of 24 games since Dec. 27 when they rested several starters. They’re also 12 games under .500 for the first time since 2017-18.
When they resume play next Thursday, they’ll be fighting for the final spot in the play-in tournament. It’s not what the Nets expected before the season. But it’s where they are with 28 games remaining.
“You can’t just let this one go and think like ‘oh like let it drop’,” Bridges said. “Maybe if you lost toward the end but you got beat by 50, it’s not just ‘let it go.’ A lot of [stuff] is not right and you got to fix it.”
Evan Barnes covers the Nets for Newsday. He previously covered Memphis football and the Memphis Grizzlies and also covered prep sports in Los Angeles.
