The oldest team in the NBA gave the youngest a lesson.
The tanking Nets – deep in a youth movement – were trounced by the venerable Clippers 121-105 on Friday at Barclays Center.
With a record five rookies taken in the first round – all but one of whom played – the Nets learned some valuable lessons against Los Angeles. They just weren’t easy ones.
James Harden put on a show with a game-high 31 points on 10-for-13 shooting, getting to the rim at will. The future Hall of Famer had 15 points in the first quarter alone, when he helped put the Nets in a 16-point hole.
Kawhi Leonard, who was questionable with a sprained right ankle, added 13 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter. And even as 40-year-old Chris Paul was sent home, the Clippers put on a clinic in breaking down what had been a stout Brooklyn defense.
“The reality is you can explain the game plan, but until you don’t go through it, that’s how you learn,” Jordi Fernández said. “Those minutes were very valuable because you see those guys and guard them sometimes and you think, ‘Oh, that was good defense.’ But for us, because we’ve seen them do it, it’s like that’s not good defense, because they keep scoring, because they’ve done it their whole career and they’ll continue to do it. So it’s good. That’s how you learn.”
The Nets turned out to be flawed.
They coughed up 59.2 percent shooting and 58.3 percent from deep, split by the Clippers.
The rebuilding Nets have an average league age of 23.7 years, according to NBAage.com, while the Clippers are the only team in the league with 30 years.
Lottery pick Egor Dëmin led the Nets with 19 points and three steals on 5-of-10 shooting from deep. Michael Porter Jr. added 18 points, six assists, five rebounds and four steals, but had a rare off night, shooting 0-for-9 from behind the arc.
“It’s very rare. It will happen once every five years that Mike will just miss nine threes,” Fernández said.
The Nets (11-24) are fifth in the lottery standings, but are closer to ninth than fourth. Brooklyn fell two games behind the fourth-seeded Wizards, who lost to the Pelicans. The Nets have a half-game lead over the Hornets and one lead over the Jazz.
The Clippers are 8-2 since a 6-21 start.
Harden, who broke up the Nets’ Big 3 when he was the first to ask out, led the way.
“Some great memories. We had a chance to do something special,” Harden said of his time in Brooklyn. “Personally, I just got injured. And that was the first time in my entire career that I couldn’t stay on the field and be effective as I can be, as I am. So in that regard it was a little frustrating. But some great experiences those two years or so, obviously it was COVID, so the world was in crisis. But this organization helped me and I appreciate them.”
The Nets coughed up a 16-2 run and fell behind by 16 midway through the first quarter. They then gave up 14 unanswered points in a Clippers blitz that stretched from the end of the first through the second.
Even Brooklyn’s all-time leading scorer came back to haunt them. Rookie Danny Wolf drove the baseline late in the third, but had his shot blocked by 37-year-old former Nets center Brook Lopez.
“They just made it hard for us. They were loading up, doubling Mike, doubling down [Cam Thomas]. They had a really good game plan, they were locked into our sets and we weren’t able to generate a lot of clean looks and get into a really good flow offensively,” Nic Claxton said.
“They just came out and shot. You’ve got to start better, especially when you’re playing against such a talented team like the Clippers.”
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