It’s become old news: The Brooklyn Nets of today are not nearly as helpless as the black-and-white outfit that both began the season 0-7 and were somehow less competitive than their record suggested.
Since then, they are 7-11 with a -1.2 net rating, not to mention 6-3 against below .500 opponents. Since the beginning of November, they’ve won Michael Porter Jr.‘s minutes outright; July’s full-time podcaster is December’s All-Star candidate. How strongly you feel the Nets should tank — *ahem* maximize their NBA Draft Lottery odds — will inform how excited you are about this development, but there is one aspect of Brooklyn’s recent success we can all celebrate: If they keep playing this well, the discussion will be moot.
Meanwhile, the Miami Heat entered Barclays Center on Thursday night having lost five straight games, a span in which Erik Spoelstra’s funky, screen-less offense has been the league’s worst. “Earlier in the season, we were able to get whatever we wanted because they didn’t know our offense, our system,” said a drearily honest Norman Powell earlier this week.
On paper, a pretty fair fight, especially with Miami’s Tyler Herro ruled out due to a toe injury. Aside from the continued absences of Cam Thomas and Haywood Highsmith, the Nets were perfectly healthy. That is, until Drake Powell sprained his right ankle three minutes after checking in on Thursday night…
That’s the same ankle Powell sprained twice to open this season. He was ruled out for the night immediately after exiting the contest, and the Nets had no further updates postgame. The Nets later had another injury scare when Noah Clowney knocked knees with Simone Fontecchio and exited the game in the second quarter, though he was available to start the second half.
While it wasn’t the prettiest display of basketball, it ultimately was a fair fight. The Heat jumped out to an early 11-point lead as Jordi Fernández sighed and clacked his teeth as his team’s lack of effort, but that was the worst things got. Brooklyn trailed by just three after the first quarter, and five at halftime after Norman Powell hit a 45-foot H-O-R-S-E shot…
Aside from Powell, who scored a team-high 24 points on the night, nobody on either side could find his outside shot. That includes Michael Porter Jr., who didn’t get it going until semi-garbage time. Overall, MPJ needed 24 shots to get to his 28 points; given the way he’s shot the rock to begin the season, it’s tough for him to take a truly bad shot, but he did his damndest on Thursday.
Not that he was entirely misguided. As a team, Brooklyn shot a disgusting 11-of-49 from three, or 22.4%, in increasingly desperate need of a jumpstart as the game dredged on. Still, they stayed in the game thanks to similar inaccuracy on the other side and by Nic Claxton’s 16/12/8/2/3 on 8-of-9 shooting. Over the last few years, Clax and Bam Adebayo have honed if not quite a heated rivalry, then a platonic annoyance with each other. Clax won the first round of 2025-26, as Bam scored just eight points of 4-of-13 shooting with five fouls, watching the end of the game from the bench.
Turns out, Miami didn’t need him! Their other big, the demonically long and springy Kel’el Ware, put up a 22-and-12 double-double along with four blocks. With the Nets struggling from outside, Ware dominating the inside was enough to hand Brooklyn their lowest point total of the season. By the end of the night, the Nets were so sick of Ware that Terance Mann hit him with a flagrant foul that spelled the end of a half-hearted comeback attempt…
With Ben Saraf and Nolan Traore on G League assignment and Powell an early exit, the only rookies that could have saved the day were Egor Dëmin and Danny Wolf. Both had their moments, both had their missteps. Wolf played nearly 20 minutes, posting 9/5/2 with three turnovers, including a couple eyesores after Fernández said “the assist-turnover ratio is something that he has to do better [in],” pregame.
Egor Dëmin, despite constant harassment from Davion Mitchell, got up 18 shot-attempts, tying his career-high. He made just five of them, hoisting some 3-point attempts that were only a notch less desperate than a prayer, though you can’t have trial-and-error without the error. Dëmin did provide the last gasp of hope for Brooklyn, cutting the deficit to four with five minutes left, ultimately ensuring this would count as a “clutch-time” loss…
Miami didn’t need their innovative offense the shred Brooklyn’s defense on Thursday, they just needed to contain Michael Porter Jr. and watch Noah Clowney have his worst offensive game of the year, as the third-year Net shot 2-of-13 from the floor and 0-of-9 from three.
Fernández was not upset with his team’s effort after the game: “Little mistakes that you can correct, and shots going in or not — I’m happy with the looks that we had that didn’t go in. So sometimes, a little bit of that is the difference, right? Like, they’re a good running team, and we did a better job in the second half, holding them to four fast-break points instead of, I thought it was 13 in the first … I’m very proud of them, you know, how the team fought and competed all the way through.”
Alas, Fernández was less happy with the officials, who awarded Brooklyn just 11 free-throws, including just one solitary attempt in the first half: “I thought for the most part, they called a good football game out there, because it was not basketball.”
Brooklyn didn’t do anything that objectionable on Thursday night, instead just a victim to one of those nights that an 82-game NBA season will often produce. But that didn’t make it any less ugly, and Brooklyn falls to 1-15 against teams .500 or better. The Nets are much improved, far from pathetic … but world-beaters, they are not.
Final Score: Miami Heat 106, Brooklyn Nets 95
Vaughn Ridley/NBAE via Getty Images
Vaughn Ridley/NBAE via Getty Images
Miami was the first of three straight Eastern Conference opponents for the Nets, all with a winning record. Next up is the Toronto Raptors, once again at home. Tip-off is scheduled for Sunday evening at 6:00 p.m. ET.