The Brooklyn Nets got whacked in the season opener, 130-108, by the New Orleans Pelicans despite Kevin Durant’s 32 points on just 21 shots.
In a statement after the loss, Kyrie Irvin said:
“I talked about the other day, just us being tested and us being challenged. And this is going to be a familiar theme throughout the year, and that’s to consistently play with a competitive spirit without us talking about it all the time.”
“And I don’t want to sit in this seat after every game saying, ‘We should have done this, we should have done that.’ Like, this is a grown man league and the most physical team wins.”
Meanwhile, the Pelicans’ big three of CJ McCollum, Zion Williamson, and Brandon Ingram stole the show, amassing on 74 combined points en route to the blowout win.
Brooklyn meanwhile got just 17 combined points from Ben Simmons and Kyrie Irving. Simmons was particularly disappointing, recording more fouls (6) than points (4) in his Nets first game.
Rallying was Brooklyn’s Achilles heel on Wednesday, with the Pelicans out-boarding the Nets 61-39. Many of those second-chance openings led to three-pointers for New Orleans, who shot 46.2% from deep.
Brooklyn, meanwhile, couldn’t find any density from distance at just 30.3%, and the Pelicans used this against them by crowding the paint and stifling Brooklyn’s lead creators with multiple defenders.
In typical Nets fashion, the attack began with a slow start, as the Nets missed their first three shots. Ben Simmons broke the scoring deficit with the first Nets point of the season after a Pelicans turnover.
The lead only increased after three straight turnovers from the Nets—one from Kevin Durant dribbling into a crowd, one from Ben Simmons on a failed alley-oop, and one from Royce O’Neale on a charge—growing New Orleans’ lead to 16.
Brooklyn got things back on track in the second quarter, beginning with an excellent pass from Ben Simmons to Nic Claxton in the short roll and a corner three from Markieff Morris.
Both teams went back and forth to start the third quarter; Kevin Durant hit a jumper plus the foul over Williamson on one end, and CJ McCollum splashed a three-point jumper when the Nets double-teamed Jonas Valanciunas.
The fourth quarter was more of the same, with the Nets eventually waiving the white flag at the 4:30 mark. And that was all she wrote. A 22-point blowout loss and a 0-1 start to the season with a tough opponent, the Toronto Raptors, headed to Brooklyn on Friday.
