BROOKLYN — For the second consecutive year, the Nets’ season ended on the court at Barclays Center in Game 4 of the first round of the playoffs. It wasn’t the Boston Celtics sending the Nets home early this time around though, no, it was a Joel Embiid-less Philadelphia 76ers.
The Nets, who led for most of the first half, scored just 15 points in the third quarter and watched the 76rs go on a 14-0 run during the period to take a lead and eventually take Game 4, 96-88. The Nets managed to use a 7-0 run in the early part of the fourth quarter to take a brief lead, but they couldn’t sustain it.
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De’Anthony Melton knocked down a three with 8:38 left in the game to put the 76ers up 73-72. Mikal Bridges, who shot 6-for-18 and had 17 points, missed two crucial free throws moments later that could have given the Nets a lead.
The Sixers put up five quick points to extend their lead to 78-72. Even with the small push in the final frame, Brooklyn was held to just 13 points down to the final 4:28 of the game.
“I’d say defensively it was a little easier today, but the story of the series is we couldn’t buy buckets, man. We couldn’t make shots, especially from three,” Spencer Dinwiddie said. “I mean, there’s another 24 percent shooting night and we were close to our 40-point mark but we can’t get even 40 percent from three, so it is what it is.”
Saturday was the second time in franchise NBA history that the Nets were swept in consecutive years. The first time it occurred was back in 1985 when the Detroit Pistons beat them in three straight games and 1986 when the Milwaukee Bucks knocked them out of the playoffs in three straight games.
“I mean, getting swept is trash. It’s not a good feeling,” Nic Claxton said. “I wish we could’ve got a win but you always wanna look at the positives. For this team, the organization, to be put in this situation, I thought we did well finishing out the season.”
Saturday’s Game 4 had a much different feel without Embiid in the lineup after he suffered a right knee sprain in Game 3 on Thursday. It changed the Nets’ game plan and put more focus on James Harden, which seemed to work in the first half which they led all but the opening minute.
Harden and Tyrese Maxey both shot just 3-for-10 in the opening 24 minutes and the Sixers shot 2-for-11 from beyond the arc during that span. But the script flipped in the third as Maxey came alive with 10 points in the third and Philly’s shots started to fall.
Dinwiddie finished with 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting in the Game 4 loss. Nic Claxton scored 19 points of his own, pulled down 12 rebounds, and blocked four shots, all of which were career-highs for the big man.
Seth Curry had six points off the bench and the Nets as a team shot just 22.2% from three-point range.
“It just wasn’t one person. Across the board, across the series, we didn’t shoot to our averages, and analytically we always talk about you’re gonna shoot what you shoot. If a guy’s a 38% shooter, you’re gonna more than likely shoot 38%, and we had a multitude of guys that didn’t reach their numbers this series,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said.
Tobias Harris, a Long Island native, had a game-high 25 points. Harden finished with 17 and Maxey had 16.
The playoff sweep marked the end of a bizarre season that had plenty of ups and downs for the Nets organization, which really started in the offseason after Kevin Durant had requested a trade in the summer before free agency opened.
The season featured everything from a slow start for a star-studded Nets roster to a full-on controversy surrounding Kyrie Irving to a December that was one of the best in franchise history. Then the roster entirely changed with a Kevin Durant injury and the eventual exodus of Durant and Irving.
After that the Nets had to learn how to play with nearly an entirely new starting rotation. Now Brooklyn has plenty of questions to answer during the offseason as general manager Sean Marks looks to retool the team around some of the stars that developed in the post-superstar era.
“It’s been a crazy season. I can’t tell you that enough,” Johnson said. “Tried to merge basically three teams into one starting lineup in February. And that presents a unique set of challenges. And we tried to fight through them, I think we did and I’m proud of the group for doing them and sticking together. There was no friction. Everybody did their best to be on the same page. I’m proud of the group for that and I think he is too. It’s setting the foundation for what we can build.”
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