With the remainder of this season all about rebuilding and participant improvement, the Nets nonetheless are attempting out younger gamers to see which of them they’ll use to construct.
Brooklyn went younger in Thursday’s recreation towards Minnesota, and the outcomes have been about as anticipated.
They have been overwhelmed, 105-90, earlier than a crowd of 17,926 at Barclays Middle in a recreation that noticed them path many of the night.
Coach Jordi Fernandez gave Maxwell Lewis the primary begin of his profession and handed Trendon Watford solely his third as a Web, his first of the season.
Watford completed with 11 factors, 5 rebounds and a game-high tying 5 assists.
Nic Claxton had 18 factors, six boards and 5 dimes, whereas Lewis scored 10 factors and 6 boards in invaluable minutes for the second-year wing.
Dariq Whitehead added 17. However towards a stable Minnesota staff, they received predictably outclassed.
Anthony Edwards poured in a game-high 28 factors, a few of them high-flying.
The Timberwolves star was briefly sidelined when — after hitting a 3-pointer to place the Nets in a 38-30 gap — he got here down awkwardly on Fernandez’s foot. Edwards hobbled off the court docket with 3:54 left within the half.
However Edwards returned for the second, no worse for put on.
He continued to punish Brooklyn and received the loudest applause of the evening on a dunk that left the Nets trailing 90-73 with 6:24 to play. The remainder of the evening was rubbish time.
Rudy Gobert had 21 factors and 18 boards for Minnesota.
It needed to survive an otherworldly efficiency the evening earlier than by Nikola Jokic, overcoming his 61 factors, 10 boards and 10 assists to win in double additional time.
However the Nets don’t have any Jokic, basically simply in Yr Zero of their rebuild.
Brooklyn (25-52) remained sixth within the lottery odds.
It stayed two video games behind the fifth-place 76ers, who misplaced to Milwaukee and seem unlikely to win once more this season.
The Nets are three video games forward of the seventh-place Raptors, who fell to Portland.
If the Nets finish the season sixth, they’d have a 9 % probability of profitable top-overall decide — and Duke star Cooper Flagg — and a 37.2 % probability of getting a top-four decide.
Their most certainly touchdown spot can be both seventh (29.8) or eighth (20.6).
Main 7-3, the Nets let the Timberwolves (45-32) reel off 9 unanswered factors.
A Naz Reid free throw capped the run at 16-2 and left Brooklyn down 19-9 with 2:25 left within the first quarter.
The Nets responded with a 12-1 run that spanned into the second.
Drew Timme hit a jumper to place them up 21-20. However they conceded an 18-9 run.
