Pistons rally in second half to take down cold-shooting Nets

The Nets’ first game of a back-to-back on Sunday looked like it had the right ingredients brewing for the team’s third straight win: Cam Johnson got off to a hot start with eight straight points; Detroit began playing like their 1-5 record suggested; and young star Cade Cunningham had yet to make any impact on the game.
To make matters worse for J.B. Bickerstaff’s squad, Johnson continued his torrid start into halftime. The Nets went into the intermission up five, getting 22 points from Johnson, the most by a Net this season through the first two quarters.
But Johnson, who shot 7-of-10 from the field (3-of-6 from deep) by halftime, cooled off in the period while the Pistons outscored the home team, 31-20. In that quarter, It was Detroit’s Tobias Harris leading the charge, helping the Pistons turn the game around to secure a 106-92 win at Barclays Center on Sunday evening.
“My biggest concern is our offense in the second half,” head coach Jordi Fernandez said postgame. “Obviously, you got to give them credit with their physicality, but I think they did it in the first half too.”
The loss — versus a lowly opponent — was a tough blow for a Nets team slated to suit up again in about 24 hours against a stronger Ja Morant-led Grizzlies squad.
“Obviously, this is a game that we all have to look at ourselves in the mirror and be better tomorrow. Watch film,” Fernandez said. “I’m gonna help them with don’t do this again… it’s pretty awful. So, we just don’t want to do that.”
Harris scored 18 points, including seven in the third quarter that helped turn the game around. Johnson, who finished with a game-high 26 points, went 1-of-4 in the third after looking sure to eclipse the 30-point mark for the first time this season.
But still, the Nets had a chance to get back into the game after entering the fourth quarter down just six points. The deficit, however, grew to 11 points after Cunningham scored with eight minutes remaining, forcing Fernandez to call a timeout.
The Nets were unable to muster a comeback attempt and the team’s overall inefficiencies caught up with them. The Nets managed just 35 second-half points, three more than their tally in the second quarter.
“I thought we had great looks, great looks,” Johnson said. “And I mean, like I said, in the second half, a lot of them were mine, and if I shot seven of them, I thought all seven were going in. I wouldn’t say it’s tired legs or anything like that. It’s just how basketball goes sometimes. I tell you guys that all the time, even when the ball leaves my hand, if it doesn’t feel good, I’d say that. If it does, I’ll tell you. And those ones all feel good, and they just didn’t go down. So quality shots, we definitely got quality shots, but just kind of converting. You know, another game tomorrow, just get back at it and clean it up.”
Aside from Johnson, no other Nets player scored 10 points until Cam Thomas did following his jumper with 4:24 remaining in the third quarter. Despite the low scoring, Thomas said postgame that the Pistons did “nothing” that took away looks in the first half.
“Just shots I normally make I missed today,” said Thomas, who missed 11 of his 17 shots. Thomas added that Pistons defenders were “holding” and “grabbing” him but officials didn’t blow the whistle.
“So it gets frustrating after a while because it’s blatant, and then they call them on us. So it just gets frustrating after a while. So it’s tough,” he said.
Johnson and Thomas, who finished with 17, were the lone Nets to score in double-digits.
During his postgame presser, Johnson refuted the notion that he didn’t have “much help” in the loss.
“I wouldn’t say we didn’t have much help. I wouldn’t say that at all,” he said. “We were forcing the ball out of certain guys’ hands on their end, making them kind of move it around and have to find different ways in order to score, not just let their main guys get going. On our end, it’s just the way they defend, and we can do a better job of sacrificial cuts and countering their aggression. It’s just how they want to play, and we kind of fell into the way they want to play. I think they got the desired effect that they wanted, and we got to do a better job offensively, across the board, of countering their aggression.”
On the other end, six Pistons recorded at least 13 points. Guard Jaden Ivey missed 11 of his 15 shots while recording 15 points, five rebounds and five assists. Malik Beasley scored 18 off the bench and former Knicks guard Tim Hardaway Jr. contributed 14 points.
Bickerstaff relied on a handful of players to close out the fourth while the Nets faltered at every chance down the stretch. Nic Claxton, who looked like he gained some traction in limited minutes off the bench, struggled with just eight points and a rebound in 22 minutes. The poor outing came after two games with a double-double and coming one rebound short of another in Friday’s win over the Bulls.
The next step for Claxton, per Fernandez, is to see how his body responds going into Monday’s second game of a back-to-back. The center has been coming off the bench after sustaining a hamstring injury and if his body responds well, a return to the starting lineup could ensue.
Ben Simmons, who recorded four points, six assists and six rebounds in Sunday’s loss, is out for Monday’s matchup as the Nets remain cautious after coming off lower back surgery.