MINNEAPOLIS — The Nets showed some life on defense, but the other end of the court continued to be a hot mess. They couldn’t beg, buy or steal a jumper in a 101-86 loss to the Timberwolves before a sellout crowd of 18,024 at Target Center on Saturday night.
The Nets showed more grit than they had in interim coach Kevin Ollie’s debut loss in Toronto on Thursday. But they shot just 33.7 percent overall on Saturday, and a misprint-like 6-for-35 from the 3-point line.
“Yeah, they were making shots and we weren’t. It just comes down to that sometimes,” Ollie said. “We beat them on the boards. We were physical the whole game. We hunted. I thought we did a great job coming together as a team and facing adversity throughout the game. We’ve got to make shots.
“[Shooting] 6-for-35 is going to beat you every time. And we had great looks, and I just told them keep believing. We get those looks over this period of time these next games, we will win. We’ve just got to understand that process.”
The Nets (21-35) dropped their fourth straight, and have lost both games since Ollie replaced the fired Jacque Vaughn.
Saturday was better than the 28-point defeat in his debut at Toronto, down just 80-78 with 5:56 left before going ice-cold in a 9-0 drought.
“They just made 3s, and we couldn’t buy one. We were 6-for-[35] from the 3-point line, it’s tough. You know, it’s tough to beat an NBA team not scoring 100 points,” Dorian Finney-Smith said. “We kept them … they only scored 101 points, so we did a good job on the defensive end and we didn’t just make enough shots.”
The Nets also lost starting point guard Ben Simmons to a leg injury in the third quarter, his status up in the air.
When Simmons left, the Nets were trailing, 53-51, and promptly knotted the score on a Nic Claxton alley-oop from his replacement, Dennis Schroder.
The Nets — who bounced back nicely from Thursday’s beatdown — led 72-70 on a short Cam Thomas jumper with 9:28 to play. But that’s when Minnesota finally pulled away.
Brooklyn gave up a 19-6 run, and never challenged after that.
New Jersey native Kyle Anderson put the Timberwolves ahead 89-78, and the game was essentially over.
Karl-Anthony Towns, another New Jerseyan, had 28 points and nine rebounds for Minnesota. Anthony Edwards scored a game-high 29 points to go with eight boards for the Timberwolves, who played without center Rudy Gobert.
Turns out they didn’t need their defensive shot-blocker.
Thomas led the Nets with a modest 18 points and six rebounds, while Mikal Bridges added 15 points, eight assists and six rebounds.
“We liked the looks. I feel like Mikal got great looks and you know, he shoots the ball pretty well you know, Cam got some great looks. [Cam Johnson] got great looks. I got some good looks. If they give us them looks again, we’ll be in good hands,” Finney-Smith said.
“Yeah, they got stops and they got to the free-throw line. [Edwards] made some tough buckets. And I think they hit two tough twos, turnaround and a step back and kind of put the game out of reach. I feel like we battled, we battled all the way to like the last five minutes and you know they made shots down the stretch and we didn’t know. We battled on the backboard, you know, and they’re a great rebounding team. And like I say, we fought you know for 3 ½ quarters.”
There was some added spice with Schroder fouling Mike Conley on a 3-point attempt in the waning garbage time seconds, and getting pushed by Nickeil Alexander-Walker to prompt an altercation review.
Four technical fouls were handed out. And none mattered.
“Yeah, I understand where Dennis was going. It’s late game, [Conley] is a veteran. So I know if he had to do it over again, he wouldn’t take that shot,” Ollie said.
“Mike’s a professional and he just didn’t know what to do, you know? He got the ball and it was like a two-possession game,” Finney-Smith said. “You know, it’s one of those ones where either you shoot it or you don’t. But you know I feel like he understood why guys were upset. So he wasn’t really mad about it.”
