School’s still in session for the young Brooklyn Nets, but their confidence is trending in the right direction.
The Nets have won two in a row, but it’s the way they’ve gone about those wins which indicates the lessons they’ve learned are beginning to payoff.
It was a little under two weeks ago when the Nets were embarrassed on their homecourt by the Detroit Pistons, revenge was served recently with a 101-100 victory on Detroit’s homecourt.
In this game, the Nets blew a 15-point third quarter lead and all appeared lost after Andre Drummond scored a go-ahead basket with 4.5 seconds left.
But, ironically, it was Spencer Dinwiddie, the 2014 second round draft pick of the Pistons, who connected on an acrobatic floater over the outstretched hands of Drummond with 1.1 seconds left to ice the game for Brooklyn.
It had to feel good for Dinwiddie to secure a game-winner against his former team, but this win was also an eye-opener for the team.
“I’m not sure two months ago we get this win. I’m not sure we had the poise and the understanding to get a win like this,” a visibly pleased head coach Kenny Atkinson said afterwards to the media. “We’ve been in some close games that we haven’t pulled out. It’s a credit to the players. There’s growth there.”
Atkinson was right, two months ago the Nets likely don’t come back to get this win. Not after blowing a double-digit lead and then allowing a go-ahead basket in the final seconds of the game.
But the Nets have been in enough of these situations this season where they’ve come up short or just collapsed and never recovered.
They showed growth to battle back after Detroit clawed their way back into the game, Dinwiddie led the way. He’s been battling through a shooting slump but played with poise and scored 11 of his game-high 22 points down the stretch.
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The growth and poise are beginning to show throughout this team, just as it also did in their previous game against Miami. The Nets trailed by 16 in the second half before battling back to put away the Heat and snap a five-game losing streak at Barclays Center.
Coming of Age
The Nets have eleven players under contract on their roster no older than 25 years old. Three of those players – Dinwiddie, Allen Crabbe, and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson – are in the starting lineup. D’Angelo Russell, 21 years old, is working his back from knee surgery and recently returned to game action.
This team’s young but they’re going through the ups and downs together. It’s no longer unrealistic for the Nets to think about making a run at the postseason. At 18-29, they’re six games back for the eighth playoff spot in the east. That’s quite a contrast from a year ago at this time when they were 9-35 and it seemed as if there would be no end to the losing.
For a team which had lost six of their previous seven games, this two-game win streak for the Nets is modest in numbers. But, in this case, it’s the quality of those wins, not the quantity, which should give fans reason to feel excitement.