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Magic 128, Nets 118: Brooklyn Drops Opener to Orlando in Return to Play

A fast start faded for the Brooklyn Nets in their return to basketball on the NBA Campus in Orlando Friday afternoon, as the Orlando Magic built a double-digit halftime lead and broke the game open in the third quarter on the way to a 128-118 win over the Nets.

“We started out strong, we wanted to come in and dictate the pace,” said Jarrett Allen. “If you look at the first couple minutes of the game that's how we really wanted to play. And after that they just started to dictate it. They were coming down, they were comfortable getting into the sets they wanted and when a team like that does it we can't hold up with them.”

Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot led Brooklyn with 24 points, shooting 8-for-12 overall and 5-for-8 from 3-point range. Caris LeVert had 17 points and seven assists, and Joe Harris and Allen had 14 each. The Nets had 30 assists on 40 field goals.

But the Nets never slowed the Magic, allowing Orlando to shoot 52.9 percent overall.

The Nets got off to a crisp start offensively, leading Orlando 39-36 after the first quarter. Allen made his first five shots, working in sync with LeVert and Chris Chiozza to convert on the inside. The Nets made seven of their first nine shots to take a 16-8 lead and finished the quarter shooting 66.7 percent (16-of-24) overall and 44.4 percent (4-of-9) from 3-point range.

But Brooklyn lost the rhythm in the second quarter, making just 2-of-11 3-pointers and shooting 7-of-21 overall. The third quarter featured similar numbers.

“They made adjustments, especially on our pick-and-rolls, trapped everything,” said LeVert. “I don’t think we made adjustments quick enough. We didn’t get enough stops. We put them to the line way too many times. I’m not even sure how many free throws they shot, but it felt like they shot way more than we did. They scored way too many points. They’re not even really a high-scoring team. We scored our fair share of points, but we have to stop people if we’re even going to have a chance out here.”

The Nets were trailing 58-55 with three minutes to go in the second quarter before the Magic took off on a 12-2 run that turned out to be just a starting point. LeVert’s long jumper closed the first half and kept Brooklyn within 70-59 at the break.

Orlando stretched its lead to 86-70, then broke the game open with a 14-3 run to take a 100-73 lead. Over a 15-minute span that began late in the second quarter, Orlando outscored Brooklyn 53-27 and took a 111-82 lead into the fourth quarter.

“I think the momentum shifted even there at the end of the first half,” said Harris. “There was three minutes left in the first half, three-point game ended up being (11) points at the half, and it just sort of continued on from there. We made some adjustments to little things here and there defensively, but a lot of it was just the compete level, execution, I think we let bad shots that we had or the missed shots that we had offensively affect what we were doing on the defensive end.”

The Nets cut into Orlando’s lead late, closing the game on an 18-0 run, with Luwawu-Cabarrot scoring 17 points in the quarter while sharing the floor mostly with Dzanan Musa, Jeremiah Martin, Justin Anderson, and Donta Hall, seeing his first game action for the Nets after being held out of all three scrimmages.

“They shared the basketball,” said head coach Jacque Vaughn. “The ball went in, which was good energy, and then just being very scrappy, whether that was communicating on the other end on some of our switching, whether that was coming back to rebound. When smalls rebound, you can get out with pace and start your break sooner, so it’s even more of a premium for us to come back and rebound so we can play with pace.”

The loss dropped the Nets below the Magic into eighth place in the Eastern Conference. They had entered the game with a half-game lead on Orlando. When they take the court on Sunday, they’ll have another key matchup against ninth-place Washington.

“It's definitely disappointing we put in all of this work, we put in all these hours and then we come out like that,” said Allen. “It's deflating. But we have to come out and play our game. You see how we responded to the Pelicans game, you see after that we came and played the next two games well. I think we're very capable of responding as a team.”