The Nets’ most impressive win all season had come in a thrashing of the Jazz just after New Year’s. Wednesday’s shorthanded rematch in Utah was every bit as lopsided, tilted the other way.
James Harden’s neck injury left the Big 3 all sidelined for the first time, and the result was as ugly as expected. The Nets got hammered 118-88 by the NBA-leading Jazz in front of a sellout crowd of 5,546 at Vivint Arena.
Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, Landry Shamet and Blake Griffin all were already out, and the loss of Harden left Brooklyn decimated. Utah (32-11) did the rest, leading by as many as 38 points and handing what was left of the Nets a beating.
It was the Nets’ lowest-scoring output of the season, and they became the last team this year to suffer a defeat by at least 20.
“Yeah, we don’t take anything from this, missing our three top players, missing Blake,” Steve Nash said. “Once the game got away early we were able to rest some of our other rotation guys.
“So we don’t take anything from this game except for the opportunity for young guys to develop and play and get an opportunity. So we’ll move on to Detroit and hopefully have some guys back to play.”
There was nothing for Nash and his Nets to do with this one other than be philosophical, flush it and move on to Friday’s game in Detroit.
With just 10 active players — some of whom had literally just met — the Nets shot just 36.1 percent, and 7-of-35 from 3-point range. They were actually led by newly signed G Leaguer Alize Johnson, who just arrived late Tuesday night and went over a couple of basic things the morning of the game.
The fact Johnson led the Nets in scoring (23 points) and rebounding (15) was both a testament to him and an indicator of how the night went.
“Just [want to] prove to everybody that I belong here in the NBA, and I’ve put in a lot of hard work and I’m going to continue to just keep working and be the best player I can be,” said Johnson, who got advice from Nash and Harden.
“Going out there and playing hard and just having fun. Hearing that from those two guys makes you confident going out there playing.”
Donovan Mitchell had 27 points in 27 minutes for Utah, who notched a 17th straight home win.
“That’s a great team, the team with the best record in the league,” Nash said. “We went out there severely undermanned, and most importantly stuck together, played hard, defensively were pretty good — maybe gave up too many 3s, but otherwise did a lot of good things defensively. I just told them I was proud of them.”
The Nets fell behind 16-4 right out of the gate, and trailed by 21 after a first quarter.
It got out of hand so quickly, Nash gave Joe Harris just 4:57 before deciding to rest him for Friday’s finale of the road trip in Detroit. The loss dropped the Nets two games behind the 76ers for first in the East.
The Nets (30-15) had drilled Utah 130-96 in their Jan. 5 clash, but this time around, the Jazz looked the part of the league’s best team.
The Nets had more of a G League vibe, with rookie Reggie Perry notching 12 points and eight boards in his first NBA appearance since Jan. 31.
“Just putting in a lot of work throughout the entire time in the [G League] bubble and throughout the entire time after I came back,” Perry said. “It felt good to actually get into a game and see that work pay off a little bit, to actually get some run.”
Utah’s Georges Niang closed the first quarter with a 3 to spot the Jazz to a 38-17 lead. Brooklyn forced nine straight misses to get within 40-28 midway through the second, but an 18-4 run capped by a Royce O’Neale 3 left them down 58-32 hole.
The Nets trailed 63-38 at the break, their lowest-scoring half of the season. A 15-2 Jazz run to open the third widened the chasm to 78-40 on a Mitchell 3.