Timberwolves-Nets Preview

By ALAN FERGUSON
Posted Nov 05 2012 1:20AM

Following a delayed start to their season, the Brooklyn Nets are trying to give the fans at their new home arena and their beleaguered region something to cheer about.

After prevailing in their Brooklyn debut, the Nets will try to keep that positivity going by knocking off the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night at the Barclays Center.

In the first home game in Brooklyn for any major professional sports team in 55 years, the Nets thrilled a raucous, sold-out crowd by holding off Toronto for a 107-100 victory Saturday. Major League Baseball's Dodgers were the last team to call the borough home before leaving for Los Angeles in 1957.

"This was such a huge night," coach Avery Johnson said. "I was so thrilled to be a part of it. This night meant a whole lot to a lot of people."

Brook Lopez led the way with 27 points and Deron Williams scored 19 alongside nine assists. Six-time All-Star Joe Johnson had 14 points, five rebounds and four assists in his Nets debut.

"I know that these fans want the best for this team. All they want from us is to work hard and give them a show," said Johnson, who came over from Atlanta in a seven-player deal in July.

The Nets (1-0) were originally scheduled to play their Brooklyn opener Thursday against the Knicks, but the aftereffects of Hurricane Sandy caused that game to be postponed.

While trying to provide a much-needed distraction from the problems in the New York area, the Nets will seek to get past a team that's given them trouble in recent matchups. They've lost five of six against Minnesota, including a 108-105 defeat in last season's only meeting Feb. 3 in New Jersey.

Nikola Pekovic had 27 points and 11 rebounds in that win, and the depleted Timberwolves might need his help again.

With Kevin Love and Ricky Rubio both sidelined recovering from injuries, Minnesota has gotten off to an uneven start, beating Sacramento 92-80 in Friday's season opener before falling 105-86 in Toronto on Sunday.

The Timberwolves (1-1) didn't help their cause with 24 turnovers against the Raptors, and they were outscored 26-13 in the fourth quarter while making 4 of 16 shots. Only two Minnesota players scored in double figures - Andrei Kirilenko with 17 points and Pekovic with 15.

"It's too many turnovers," Kirilenko said. "You can't win the game when every guy loses three or four balls. We have to work on this. It wasn't really forced turnovers, we just threw them away."

The status of Minnesota guard J.J. Barea, who had a team-leading 21 points in the win over Sacramento, is unclear for this game. Barea was diagnosed with concussion-like symptoms Sunday after being accidentally kicked in the head.

"I'll probably play," Barea said. "It all depends on the trainers. I've got to take another test (Monday) to make sure.

"My face hurts, I've got a couple of cuts in the mouth but other than that I'm all right."

Lopez missed last season's matchup with Minnesota after totaling 30 points and 12 rebounds in a 107-105 home victory over the Timberwolves on April 5, 2011. Williams hit the go-ahead shot with two seconds left in that win, finishing with 18 points and a career high-tying 21 assists.

Timberwolves rally from 22 down to stun Nets

By BRIAN MAHONEY
Posted Nov 06 2012 12:03AM

NEW YORK (AP) Another celebratory night at Barclays Center for a Russian.

No, not Mikhail Prokhorov.

His Brooklyn Nets were on their way to an easy win and a 2-0 start until rookie Alexey Shved led the Minnesota Timberwolves on a furious rally from a 22-point, second-half deficit to a 107-96 victory on Monday night.

Shved scored all 10 of his points in the fourth quarter - matching the Nets' total after Minnesota outscored them 32-10. Nikola Pekovic led Minnesota with 21 points.

Prokhorov was scheduled to fly back to Russia after the game, perhaps shaking his head the whole way home.

"For sure this was a very important game for Russia because everybody is watching and everybody wants to know who won this game," said Shved, who helped Russia to its first Olympic men's basketball medal in London, a bronze. "We're happy we won."

Maybe a little surprised, too.

Shved made the go-ahead basket with 2:35 remaining and had a pair of 3-pointers in the fourth quarter after going scoreless for the first three. The Timberwolves scored the final 11 points in an impressive rally on the second night of back-to-back games. Seemingly out of it early in the second half, they overwhelmed the Nets in the fourth quarter with a brilliant effort from their bench.

"We just kept talking about getting tougher down the stretch," Timberwolves coach Rick Adelman said. "We had to get stops in that fourth quarter. We played with a real edge in that fourth quarter and it just turned the whole thing around."

Shved, a point guard who along with Wolves forward Andrei Kirilenko played last season for the CSKA Moscow team that Prokohov once owned, hit from in the lane to make it 98-96. Then Pekovic scored inside and Chase Budinger made a 3-pointer with 38 seconds to go, making it 103-96 in front of a stunned crowd in the second game at the new Barclays Center.

Kirilenko finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Budinger also scored 16, half in the final period.

Joe Johnson scored 19 points and Deron Williams had 18 points and 13 assists for the Nets, who hadn't trailed in the second half of their first two games until Pekovic put Minnesota ahead with a little more than 4 1/2 minutes remaining.

It was the fourth-biggest comeback in Minnesota franchise history, the largest since falling behind Dallas 74-50 before rallying for a 113-110 overtime victory on Jan. 17, 1998.

The Nets had all kinds of problems down the stretch in their second game at their $1 billion arena, including the statistics monitors going down. Instead of being 2-0, they will break out their black road uniforms for the first time in the regular season with a 1-1 mark and a tough trip, visiting Miami on Wednesday and unbeaten Orlando on Friday.

Brooklyn was without starting forward Gerald Wallace after he sprained his left ankle late in Saturday's win over Toronto.

The Wolves have much more severe injury problems, with Kevin Love still recovering from a broken right hand and Ricky Rubio remaining out indefinitely after tearing up his left knee last March. They did get back JJ Barea after he left in the second quarter of Sunday's loss with concussion-like symptoms, and he was on the floor for the fourth-quarter flurry.

It was a disappointing second game in Brooklyn for the Nets. There were plenty of empty seats at the start, perhaps a combination of lingering transportation troubles during the recovery from Superstorm Sandy and a less-than-marquee opponent on a Monday night. But the arena soon filled up well and the announced attendance was 14,017, still far below the sellout of 17,732 the Nets listed for Saturday's 107-100 victory over Toronto.

The Timberwolves were glad Brooklyn got that game in, after its original opener against the Knicks last Thursday was postponed. If not, Minnesota would have been playing Monday against a team it hadn't seen in a regular-season game yet.

"I was worried we were going to be their opening night, which I didn't really want to do," Adelman said before the game. "But we have a pretty good scout and he saw them in the preseason, so we know the players, so just a matter of what they're going to run."

Whatever it was, the Nets ran it well - for three quarters.

Brooklyn scored 31 points in each of the first two, shooting 59.5 percent from the field and 61.5 percent from 3-point range in the first half. Johnson made two of the Nets' eight 3-pointers, including one that gave them their biggest lead of the half at 59-43. The lead was 15 at the break and it seemed the Nets would have an easy night against a Minnesota team that lost by 19 in Toronto a night earlier.

Williams' 3-pointer with 9:36 left in the third made it a 22-point game, but the Wolves trimmed that deficit in half by the end of the period, then dominated the first 6 minutes of the fourth.

Nets coach Avery Johnson said it looked as if the Nets "kind of ran out of gas" and "lost our way" at the end.

"I just think for our team, losses like this have to really sting more than they ever have in the past, because losses like this can come back to bite you later in the year," Johnson said. "So we can't afford to lose at home. We're trying to build a home-court advantage, we're trying to get us a rhythm here at home, some momentum. So this was one that was definitely a winnable game."

Budinger and Shved made consecutive 3-pointers before Dante Cunningham's basket capped a run of eight straight points to tie it at 92 with 6:29 to play. The Wolves regained the lead for the first time since the first quarter when Pekovic beat his man down the floor and took a long pass for a layup that made it 96-94 with a little over 4 1/2 minutes to play.

Williams agreed with his coach that the loss stung.

"I think we'll see how we respond tomorrow," he said. "I think more important (is) how we come out in practice. If you come out lackadaisical and not ready to work in practice, then it probably didn't mean any much to you. If we come out ready to work, we'll know that we didn't perform the way we should, things didn't go the right way and we want to correct those things."

Notes: Barea, along with Cleveland's Donald Sloan, got one of the NBA's first two warnings for flopping. The league determined Barea was acting to fool the referee into calling a foul when he threw his upper body backward after contact while defending Sacramento's Jimmer Fredette in the fourth quarter on Friday. ... Prokhorov said hello to Kirilenko when they bumped into each other earlier Monday at the arena. Prokhorov was in Brooklyn for the first two games.

Notebook: Timberwolves 107, Nets 96

Jake Appleman, for NBA.com
Posted Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:03 PM - Updated Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:03 PM

THE FACTS: With the Barclays Center computers malfunctioning, the Nets coughed up a 22-point lead and lost to the Timberwolves, 107-96, at Barclays Center. Nikola Pekovic (17 points), Dante Cunningham (5 points), Chase Budinger (13 points) and Andrei Kirilenko (16 points, nine rebounds, six assists) out-muscled and outmaneuvered the Nets' frontcourt in the second half, as the Timberwolves were impressively able to mount their comeback on the second day of a back-to-back.

QUOTABLE: "We did a good job at chipping away." -- Wolves point guard J.J. Barea

THE STAT: The Wolves outscored the Nets 32-10 in the fourth quarter.

TURNING POINT: Nikola Pekovic made an aggressive move in the lane to put the Wolves firmly in control at 100-96.

QUOTABLE II: "At the start of the fourth quarter, 11 down, I told them the first five minutes are going to be crucial in this game." -- Wolves coach Rick Adelman.

INSIDE THE ARENA: The Nets' "Brooo-klyn" chant became a staple through the speaker's Public Address system...The Nets received lackluster support from fans in the lower bowl.

ROOKIE WATCH: Tyshawn Taylor and Mirza Teletovic had bright debuts for the Nets. Alexey Shved (six points) did some nice things for the Wolves.

NOTABLE: Keith Bogans, starting for an injured Gerald Wallace, began the game with a 3-pointer and then air-balled another attempt on the Nets' subsequent possession. All of his nine points came in the first quarter...The game saw a startling number of airballs....Nets point guards shot well and combined for 33 points and 19 assists, but could not prevent the Nets from their massive fourth-quarter collapse.

UP NEXT: For the Timberwolves, Wednesday vs. Orlando, Friday vs. Indiana, Saturday @ Chicago. For the Nets, Wednesday vs. Miami, Friday vs. Orlando, Sunday vs. Orlando.

• Timberwolves: Love, Rubio
• Nets: Childress, Wallace

• Timberwolves: --
• Nets: --

• Lead Changes: 3
• Times Tied: 7

• Arena: Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY
• Officials: #63 Derek Richardson, #47 Bennie Adams, #8 Marc Davis
• Attendance: 14017
• Duration: 2:05