On a two-game road trip to Cleveland, the defense went missing for the Brooklyn Nets, who dropped their second straight to the Cavaliers on Friday night, 125-113.
For the second game in a row, the Nets allowed the Cavaliers to shot 50 percent for the game, but this time, it wasn’t a double-overtime shootout. Leading by a point at halftime, Cleveland pushed its lead to 14 points in the third quarter and Brooklyn never got back in the game over the final period.
“I think it was just a multitude of things,” said Joe Harris. “I think initially it starts on the defensive end. We only scored 24 points in the (third) quarter, but we gave up 37. A lot of it was I think the defensive miscues probably led into bad offense as well, and it was something that was addressed at halftime and our sense of urgency just wasn’t where it needed to be to start the third quarter.”
Kyrie Irving led Brooklyn with 38 points, shooting 14-for-24 overall and 4-of-9 from 3-point range with five assists. James Harden put up his fourth double-double in as many games as a Net with 19 points and 11 assists, plus five rebounds.
Jeff Green had 13 points for Brooklyn and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot added 11. The Nets were outrebounded 50-29 and gave up 70 points in the paint and 18 second-chance points.
Brooklyn was without Kevin Durant, who played 50 minutes on Wednesday and was held out for injury recovery with the Nets on the front end of a back-to-back and in the middle of a run of four games in six nights.
Irving and Harden combined to take eight of Brooklyn’s first 10 shots of the game and score the first 17 points before Green’s steal and layup put the Nets up 19-15. But a 10-2 run put Cleveland in the lead, and the Cavs led 34-33 after one quarter.
Reggie Perry’s rebound basket and a Harden 3-pointer opened up the second quarter and put the Nets up 38-34, but the Cavs reeled off a 13-3 run to go up 47-41. With Cleveland up 61-54, the Nets scored the final six points of the half, with Irving assisting on two layups wrapped around his top-of-the-key jumper, and Brooklyn went in to the break down 61-60.
Harden’s 3-pointer had the Nets up 70-69 4:30 into the second half, but a 14-2 run put the Cavaliers up by double digits, and with 3:30 to go in the quarter they had pushed that lead to 89-75. Green scored seven points in a 9-2 Brooklyn burst, and his 3-pointer brought the Nets within 91-74, but Cleveland scored the next seven to take a 98-84 lead into the fourth quarter.
“You could say we're not a defensive team or we made too many errors schematically,” said Nets head coach Steve Nash. “But I think the bigger message is that just showing up to the gym is not good enough. We are playing people that I think are excited to play and compete against our team. And they're going to bring it every night and we have to match that. So that would be my main, overriding thought on these two games.”