Nets give youngsters a bigger shot in loss to Timberwolves
With the rest of this season all about rebuilding and player development, the Nets still are trying out young players to see which ones they can use to build.Brooklyn went young in Thursday’s game against Minnesota, and the results were about as expected.They were beaten, 105-90, before a crowd of 17,926 at Barclays Center in a game that saw them trail most of the evening.Coach Jordi Fernandez gave Maxwell Lewis the first start of his career and handed Trendon Watford only his third as a Net, his first of the season.Watford finished with 11 points, five rebounds and a game-high tying five assists.
Nic Claxton had 18 points, six boards and five dimes, while Lewis scored 10 points and six boards in valuable minutes for the second-year wing.Dariq Whitehead added 17.But against a solid Minnesota team, they got predictably outclassed.Anthony Edwards poured in a game-high 28 points, some of them high-flying.The Timberwolves star was briefly sidelined when — after hitting a 3-pointer to put the Nets in a 38-30 hole — he came down awkwardly on Fernandez’s foot.
Edwards hobbled off the court with 3:54 left in the half.But Edwards returned for the second, no worse for wear.He continued to punish Brooklyn and got the loudest applause of the night on a dunk that left the Nets trailing 90-73 with 6:24 to play.
The rest of the night was garbage time.Rudy Gobert had 21 points and 18 boards for Minnesota.It had to survive an otherworldly performance the night before by Nikola Jokic, overcoming his 61 points, 10 boards and 10 assists to win in double overtime.But the Nets have no Jokic, essentially just in Year Zero of their rebuild.Brooklyn (25-52) remained sixth in the lottery odds.
It stayed two games behind the fifth-place 76ers, who lost to Milwaukee and appear unlikely to win again this season.The Nets are three games ahead of the seventh-place Raptors, who fell to Portland.If the Nets end the season sixth, they would have a nine percent chance of winning top-over...