Nets suddenly use suffocating defense to put Raptors on the run

From the start of the season to this point, the Nets defense has gone from sieve to stout.

It was scorching hot on Sunday.

The Nets pulled away for a 96-81 rout of the Raptors in front of a sold-out crowd of 17,548 at Barclays Center. And it wasn’t with a powerful attack, but with suffocating work on the other end of the floor down the stretch.

The Nets (8-19) allowed their fewest points of the season, bettering the 82 they allowed a week earlier in a win over the Bucks by 45 points. It’s the first time since 2018-19 that they’ve held foes to 82 points or less multiple times in a season.

Trailing by two in the fourth quarter, the Nets seized control with a 24-6 run. And increasingly, a solid defense is not an exception, but an expectation.

“Just doing what we do best,” Nic Claxton said. “And our defense has been pretty solid over the last month. It’s been really good. So we just have to keep taking steps in the right direction. But we’ve done a really good job as a defender. We have a lot of switchable defenders. We still have a lot of areas where we can get better, but we just have to keep going.”

The past month has been as impressive as it was unexpected.

The tanking Nets have held their opponents to just 102.3 points per game so far in December, the fewest in the NBA, surpassing OKC. Considering the embarrassing way they started this season – with a league-worst 128.5 defensive rating against an 0-7 start – the turnaround is shocking.

“We didn’t start [the season] defensively all good. It was very bad. We haven’t bought a lot of things,” Nets head coach Jordi Fernández said. “Obviously we’ve evolved and made some adjustments.

“But now it feels like we have a good rhythm with our physicality, with our communication, making multiple stops in a row and making winning plays. We’re building our defensive identity. And I give credit to the coaches for structuring the work and to the players for doing the work, and then spreading that out on the field.”

The Nets matched their best defensive first quarter (18 points) and had their best defensive half (39 points) of the season. Then they went out and sealed the deal, holding Toronto to 37.2 percent shooting and 10 of 36 from deep.

Part of that may very well have to do with the fact that the Raptors didn’t get in until after 4 in the morning. But the Nets didn’t care and attacked their tired foes.

Trailing 71-69 with 10:10 to go after a bucket by Immanuel Quickley (17 points, 10 assists), the Nets went on a 24-6 blitz. They held the Raptors to 1-of-10 shooting with a turnover during that run and hit 10-of-13 themselves to take the game.

Michael Porter Jr. had a game-high 24 points on 4-for-8 shooting from deep, with 11 rebounds and five assists. Noah Clowney added 19 points, nine boards and two blocks and rookie Egor Dëmin had 16 points, five rebounds and two steals while going 4-for-8 from behind the arc.

“We lost a little bit of focus in the third quarter. So for us it was very important to get back into the rhythm and pick up every possession, every attack and defense,” Dëmin said. “We got this feeling when we played the first two quarters. So that helped us. We got dialed in on defense.”

The Nets trailed big in the final period, but squeezed the life out of the tired Raptors. They outscored Toronto 29-16 in that fourth quarter, when they shot just 27.3 percent and allowed 0-for-9 from deep.

“I think we hit back. They took the lead. It was a collective effort,” Fernández said. “Noah made incredible plays, won plays at the rim, whether it was getting a block or going vertical. And then Egor’s 3s were huge. And from then on, everyone contributed to the win in that fourth quarter.”