For the second time in as many games, the Brooklyn Nets went down to the wire on the road, but could not pull out a close game, falling 108-107 to the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center.
Brook Lopez nearly had a triple-double, leading the Nets with 22 points, nine rebounds and eight assists, which was good enough to get them into a scrappy fourth quarter and even have them up 98-97 with 2:54 to play.
Joel Embiid (career-high 33 points) answered Lopez’s fadeaway with a three-pointer shortly after, putting the Nets in comeback mode for the rest of the game. Twice the Nets fought back to make it a one-point game, as Jeremy Lin (16 points) hit a pair of threes with 1:35 to play and again with 2.5 seconds left, but that was as close as they came.
“We just couldn’t get over the hump,” Lopez said. “We just have to keep playing the right way. We have to play together for 48 minutes, trust in each other and trust in the system. We don’t have any room for error. We have to hold each other accountable and we just have to be better.”
They had their chances, as Sean Kilpatrick’s floater with 14.8 seconds to play didn’t drop and neither did Lin’s three-point attempt to tie it with 9.9 on the clock. Bojan Bogdanovic kept the comeback bid alive, hitting a three to make it 106-104 with 5.3 seconds to play, but Ersan Ilyasova (22 points) hit both of his free throws, just putting the game out of reach.
“We had some looks, sometimes they go your way, sometimes they don’t,” coach Kenny Atkinson said. “We need to capitalize on those opportunities. I thought we did a good job of getting stops tonight.”
Joe Harris matched his career-highs for points (19) and three-pointers (5)… Lopez matched his career high with eight assists… The Nets head to Toronto play the Raptors on Tuesday night.