The Nets won Saturday in Chicago while playing without Kyrie Irving for the first time this season, but they missed his 28.5 points per game contribution big-time in a 115-86 loss to the Pacers that all but ended in the second quarter when they fell behind by 28 points Monday night at Barclays Center.
Spencer Dinwiddie, who was Saturday's hero with a 20-point fourth quarter, put on another stellar performance while replacing Irving as the starting point guard, scoring 28 points on 9-of-21 shooting and adding eight assists and five rebounds while playing 33 minutes. But the rest of the Nets (5-8) starters combined for just 34 points, and the bench virtually failed to fire, totaling a mere 14 points on 4-for-19 shooting before coach Kenny Atkinson pulled his starters and cleared his bench with 6:05 remaining and the Nets trailing 99-76.
The Pacers (8-6) also had injury problems without injured point guard Malcolm Brogdon (lower back) or high-scoring sixth man Jeremy Lamb (ankle). But after a slow start, they had five players score in double figures led by Aaron Holiday with 24 points and 13 assists and 20 points from Justin Holiday. T.J. Warren added 19 points and Domantas Sabonis had 16 points and 18 rebounds. The Pacers outrebounded the Nets, 63-40.
The Nets' previous worst loss was by 26 points at Phoenix, and they now have lost four of their past five games. Starting against the Hornets Wednesday at Barclays Center, they play four games ins six days.
Coming off their season-long five-game road trip with a 2-3 record, Nets coach Kenny Atkinson was asked before the game for the major lesson learned from their travels. He pointed to the double-digit leads they blew in losses at Utah and Denver.
"I just think consistency in terms of getting out to those big leads and being able to execute and hold on to big leads," Atkinson said. "Those are games where you play well for three quarters of the game, and it's just one stretch that kind of knocked you out. So, that's frustrating. I always preach that you have to do it for longer periods than the other team. We're doing it in segments, but not long enough."
Amen to that. The Nets opened the game with a nice 14-6 segment, but that changed earlier than usual in the middle of the first period. When Atkinson began subbing in the middle of the period for a team playing without injured Irving (right shoulder impingement) and Caris LeVert (thumb surgery), the offense went into a deep funk as the Nets made just one of 20 shots to trail 27-18 early in the second period.
That ultimately expanded into an extended Pacers run of 53-17 for a 59-31 lead just before the Nets added two late baskets to cut their halftime deficit to 24 points. Before those two scores, the Nets went through a 7-for-34 shooting stretch with four turnovers to go 28 down. By contrast, the Pacers made five straight three-pointers at the end of that span. Truly, it was a pathetic all-around display by the Nets.
In the third period, the Nets made four straight threes, ending with a back-to-back pair by Dinwiddie that cut the Pacers' lead to 68-50. But while they gained a little traction at the offensive end, they slipped on the defensive end as the Pacers maintained a cushion that ranged from 18 to 22 points until Iman Shumpert buried a three with 4:16 left in the third to narrow the Pacers' lead to 75-60.
When Garrett Temple connected on another three-pointer at the 2:45 mark, the Nets' deficit was down to 12 points, but it ballooned to 84-68 by the end of the period. Not insurmountable, but certainly a heavy lift.
