After combining for just 27 points on 7-of-24 shooting in the Nets’ season opener, Cam Thomas and Michael Porter Jr. rebounded. in the Nets’ 131-124 loss to the Cavaliers in Friday night’s home opener.
Thomas scored 33 points and nine assists – one shy of his career high – while Porter added 31 points on 5-for-10 shooting with eight rebounds.
After Thomas had a quiet two-point first quarter, his Nets teammates urged him to attack.
He scored 31 in the last three periods, along with seven assists.
“My teammates say be aggressive, we need you to be aggressive and they’ll play me. So I think that really helped,” Thomas said. “At the end of the day, you want to play the right way and still find the guys. But at the same time, I still have to be myself and be aggressive and then find guys when they’re open. I think I did a good job of that, they scored really proud of everyone. I just want to build on that.”
It was Brooklyn’s first game with two 30-point scorers since Nov. 6, 2023 against Milwaukee, when Thomas had 45 and Mikal Bridges added 31.
Egor Dëmin was 3-of-5 from 3-point range in 25 minutes off the bench.
Keegan Murray’s seven threes in the last two games rank third for a rookie in their first two career games in league history, trailing only Chris Duarte’s nine and PJ Washington’s eight.
Ziaire Williams made a career-high nine field goals and a career-high six three-pointers on his way to 25 points. That’s the second-highest total in any game in his career.
“Ziaire was extremely active and shot well, so sometimes you had to read the game and I felt like he had to be there,” coach Jordi Fernández said.
A fan ran onto the field with 5:02 left and was wrestled away by security.
Drake Powell (right ankle sprain), Danny Wolf (left ankle sprain) and Haywood Highsmith (right knee surgery) were all out against Cleveland.
Fernández wouldn’t give a rating to Powell or Wolf, but said the rookie first-round picks are both day-to-day. The Nets play back-to-back Texas games on Sunday in San Antonio and Monday in Houston.
Fernández on the illegal gambling arrests that shook the league Thursday: “Yes, that’s personal, that’s outside of basketball, and that’s clearly not the news you want to hear. I think the NBA does a great job every year with, you know, doing the gambling meetings, the rules and so on, because we deal with young players, and I think they can follow the right steps. We support it, and that’s exactly how much I can say.”
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