Nets reserve guard Joe Harris had the best game of his career at Barclays Center on Sunday afternoon, but few noticed because he was playing against LeBron James.
Harris, in his third season out of Virginia, came off the Nets bench to score a career-high 30 points on 11-of-14 shooting to keep the Nets in the game before the Cavaliers pulled away to a 121-114 victory. Harris made 6-of-7 from 3-point range and helped the Nets’ bench outscore Cleveland’s 60-42.
“I just got in the rhythm early,” said Harris, who scored 20 in the first half. “We were moving the ball well and I was able to get room and rhythm looks right off the get-go. I knocked down my first couple and felt good. After that I was a little bit more aggressive.”
Harris had just five points in the fourth quarter, when the Cavs took control of the game by outscoring the Nets 34-25.
“They got stops and just made things tough on us,” Harris said. “It was just difficult matching up after tough, contested shots. We just needed to do a better job in the half court making things tough on them.”
The Nets led 89-87 entering the fourth quarter, but went nearly five minutes without scoring a field goal during one stretch as the Cavs took control of the game. Nets coach Kenny Atkinson liked his team’s effort in the first half, so not so much in the fourth quarter.
“We never really found a solution to stop [James],” Atkinson said. “I thought we did a decent job in the first three quarters. But 34 points is a lot to give up [in the fourth quarter]. That was the difference.”
A game after recording his first triple-double as a Net on Friday at Toronto, D’Angelo Russell had 12 points, one assist and zero rebounds in 26 minutes. Consider it part of the learning process.
“You can always take something from them,” Russell said about playing against the Cavs. “You’re playing against teams that are competing for playoff spots and playoff rankings. You can always take something from them.”