Bruce Brown scored a career-high 29 points with a pair of game-breaking 3-pointers down the stretch as the Brooklyn Nets pulled away from the Sacramento Kings for their seventh straight win, 127-118, in their return to Barclays Center after sweeping a five-game road trip.
Brown, the defensive-minded guard with a knack for slashing and finishing in the paint, scored the final eight points of the 14-1 run that turned the game for Brooklyn. He made 11-of-13 shots, including 2-of-3 3-pointers.
“Bruce is remarkable,” said Nets head coach Steve Nash. “I mean, the guy, I think he mostly played point guard last year, and he's playing — what do you want to call him, our center? You know, he’s picking and rolling and finishing with two bigs in the lane. His willingness and ability to do that is remarkable. He made some 3s tonight. But for me, it's all the other stuff; it's the activity, the defense, the deflections, all those other things. You add it all up, and you had a big impact on the game before you even get to the points. So fantastic effort from Bruce.”
The Nets had been up by 14 points in the first quarter, but Sacramento finished chopping down that lead and briefly went up by a point in the final seconds of the third quarter. The Kings were still within a point with seven minutes to go before Kyrie Irving and James Harden combined for the game’s next six points.
Then Brown hit two 3-pointers within a minute, with a paint finish in between. That put the Nets up by 14 with 3:05 left in the game. And after the Kings had put up 96 points through three quarters, the Nets closed them out defensively as well, allowing just four points in a six-minute stretch.
“Fourth-quarter defense,” said Nash. “We turned it up, held them to 22, I think we had a couple late buckets and put it to bed, so I was proud of that. I thought everyone contributed. And I thought this is a trap game. You have a winning streak on the West Coast, you fly back across the country, getting acclimated to family and friends, then time zone and all that stuff, and you play a team you beat a week ago. It's a trap game. So I was proud of the focus. It wasn't always pretty, but they wanted to win, and they got the stops when they needed them.”
Harden posted his sixth triple-double as a Net with 29 points, 14 assists and 11 rebounds, and Irving scored 21 points with seven assists and five rebounds.
Joe Harris scored 18, making 5-of-9 3-pointers. DeAndre Jordan had 10 points, eight rebounds, and blocked four shots for the second-consecutive game.
Brooklyn shot 49.4 percent overall and 42.5 percent from 3-point range, and had 30 assists against just eight turnovers.
The Nets opened up making 11 of their first 13 shots in jumping out to a 29-17 lead, pouring in 42 first-quarter points on 71.4 percent shooting to take a 42-28 lead going into the second quarter.
The Kings cut that to four points before Harris finished a layup, Harden hit a 3-pointer, and Harris made a three for a 62-50 lead, but the Kings kept coming, with a 10-0 run making it a 62-60 game. A Harris 3-pointer eventually closed out the first-half scoring with Brooklyn up 72-66.
The Nets shot 56.3 percent overall and 52.4 percent from 3-point range in the first half, while the Kings countered at 60.5 and 63.6 percent in a back-and-forth half in which the Nets posted their third-highest first-half point total of the season.
Sacramento put together a 19-8 run in the final minutes of the third quarter to erase the rest of Brooklyn’s early lead, going up 96-95 before Harris put the Nets back in the lead going into the fourth quarter, 98-96.
Harris opened the fourth quarter with another three, and Harden’s free throws put the Nets up 103-96. A three-point play by Brown after a transition finish had Brooklyn leading 110-106, but De’Aaron Fox’s 3-pointer made it a one-point game with seven minutes remaining.
“This is always a tough game coming off a long road trip, whether it’s legs, whether it’s just the travel, whatever the case may be,” said Harden. “We kept talking about it all day, even this morning at shootaround, that we’ve got to be prepared. It’s gonna be a tough game, but we’ve gotta be locked in, whether it’s our legs, or whatever the case, no excuses. We came out and showed that tonight from the beginning of the game. We’ve just got to continue to keep going, get some rest, and be prepared every single game.”