Brooklyn Nets Fail to Jazz Up Early Season Highlight Reel

From the desk of: THE HOOPS OF FLATBUSH

DE...FLATED

TUESDAY

Nets   114

Jazz   119

FINAL

Playing minus the services of Caris LeVert, the Nets take a 68-53 lead into halftime.  Up against the NBA's stingiest defense, Brooklyn is on pace to score upwards of 130-points.  Defensively, they're keeping Utah under their customary yield. 

Brooklyn still leads by eight after three quarters.  By all indications everything is going swimmingly.

But at 9:48 of the fourth quarter the Jazz make the last remnants of Brooklyn's 15-point halftime lead disappear.  Now down by three, Jarrett Allen fouls out with near six minutes left in the game.  Joe Harris hits a three tying the score at 107-107 with 5:28 left.  After four lead changes, DeAndre Jordan cleans up Kyrie Irvin's failed layup, tying the score again at 114-114 with 1:15 left to play.  Rudy Gobert's offensive rebound and dunk then put the Jazz up by one.  Kyrie misses two attempts from the field.  Utah closes out with 3/4 from the line en route to a five point margin of victory.

Brooklyn gets outscored by 20-points in the second half.  That's a 35-point swing.  Not for lack of rebounding, as the Jazz out-board the Nets by only three.  Not for lack of ball distribution, as the Nets edge the Jazz with three more assists.  Sixteen turnovers certainly didn't help, five more than the Jazz.  Rather, the defensive effort just fell apart like wet toilet paper, again.

The only thing more unsightly than Joe Harris' 4/10 from the floor and 1/2 from the line was his -22 and five personal fouls in 36 minutes.  Speaking of which, Jarrett Allen has been in foul trouble for eight straight quarters now.  With Allen limited to just 18 minutes, DeAndre Jordan stepped up with a double-double, scoring 15 points and securing a game high 17 rebounds in 30 minutes.

The Nets put up 90 shots against the Jazz; Kyrie Irving accounted for exactly one-third.  He led the Nets with 27 points and a team high 38 minutes, but was only 10/30 from the field, and just 1/2 from beyond the arc.  In the fourth quarter he missed on his last seven shot attempts.

On to Denver ...