It turns out the difference in the Brooklyn Nets’ 119-110 shootout win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night wasn’t scoring, it was rebounding.
After getting beat on the boards 25-16 in a first-half shootout, the Nets flipped the script in the second half, outrebounding the Timberwolves 27-16, winning the overall battle 43-41. Minnesota had 32 points in the paint and 18 second-chance points in the first half, but in the second those numbers dropped to 10 and seven, thanks to the Nets aggressive work on the glass. The Nets also scored a season-high 54 points in the paint.
“That was the battle,” said Brook Lopez, who had a team-high 26 points. “I think that was the reason they stuck with us. Once we had all five guys coming in and contributing on the defensive glass, it kind of took care of itself.”
The Nets guards had the biggest second-half turnaround on the glass, grabbing 15 of their collective 18 boards in the second half. Kenny Atkinson has preached guard rebounding to start the season, so he was pleased with the second-half effort.
“We did a better job of keeping them in front of us and getting rebounds at the end,” Atkinson said. “We emphasize our guard’s rebounds and I think our guards got 15 in the second half… so good by them.”
Of course, that was only half the battle. The Nets and Timberwolves played each other close all night and while the Nets largely played with the lead, six points was about as far away as they could pull. Things retightened down the stretch with Andrew Wiggins (career-high 36 points) tied the game 106-106 with 3:58 to play.
The Nets pulled ahead, but relief really came in the form of a clutch Bojan Bogdanovic three-pointer with 37.4 to play. The Nets added four free throws down the stretch to fully exhale.
“It took a lot of toughness mentally,” said Trevor Booker, who had a game-high nine rebounds while guarding Karl-Anthony Towns. “We let a couple slip away from us in the last couple of minutes that we felt like we could have had, but we didn’t let this one slip away. We knew that we had to have this one with a tough road trip coming up.”
No one epitomized toughness more than Isaiah Whitehead, who briefly left the game in the first quarter after getting his head stepped on by Gorgui Dieng. The Nets rookie returned to start the second quarter and finished the contest with a game-high seven assists to go along with seven rebounds and six points in what was a strong and gutsy performance.
“That’s Coney Island toughness,” Atkinson said. “We’re getting to feel comfortable with him out there and I felt like he had command of the game. I’m really proud, we changed defenses a lot in the second half and just how he adjusted and didn’t really get lost.”
Whitehead was making his second career start at point guard with both Jeremy Lin and Greivis Vasquez both out with injuries.
“It feels better and better every game, I feel like I’m getting better every game,” Whitehead said.
The Nets are still looking for their first consecutive wins of the season and get that chance on Wednesday night, when they head to Madison Square Garden to take on the New York Knicks. Tipoff is at 7 p.m.
NOTES:
The Nets shot a season-best .553 (42-of-76 FG) and a season-best .885 (23-of-26 FT) on Tuesday… Brooklyn’s bench outscored Minnesota’s 46-28… Bojan Bogdanovic is now tied with Mirza Teletovic for 10th in Nets all-time three-pointers