3 Takeaways from the Brooklyn Nets unexpected ripper vs Portland Trail Blazers

Everywhere you looked on the stat sheet you saw, season’s best numbers. Who knew? Players did.

Just when they started settling in, the Brooklyn Nets swept the rug out from under their fans in Rip City last night.

After two deals shipping out veterans, compounded with some choice words from Sean Marks about the team’s intentions this season, dropping games to preserve advantageous draft positioning has looked more and more the plan for the Nets over the past month and a half. The team stacking five straight losses in eight days only reinforced that.

Like the walls of Shawshank, first we hated those loses, then we got used to ‘em. Enough time has now passed where many Nets fans are starting to depend on them, especially with dazzling Cooper Flagg highlights playing out in the corners of their eyes.

Although being subjected to a tanking season is essentially the sports equivalent of a 2-3 year prison sentence, there are liberties in that comparison, as there are with any. In any 82-game slate, occasional wins are bound to happen. That’s what the Brooklyn Nets experienced last night. Here’s what we learned.

Three Starting-Level Guys Make a Difference…Shocker, Right?

Starting-level NBA players might as well be stars in the hands of Jordi Fernández. They looked the part last night, especially Johnson, who has done so all year when healthy. CJ finished with a team-high 24 points while shooting 10-18 from the field.

Russell didn’t enjoy as efficient of a night but hit the big ones nonetheless in his return. He always seemed like the guy to bury one whenever Portland crept close to seizing the lead, stiff-arming Scoot Henderson and company all evening. He finished as a second-best +14 for the evening.

Simmons experienced an even quieter night in the box score, tallying five points after taking just six shots. He wore the fast break conductor’s hat once more though, pushing the Nets forward to a season-best 29 transition points, dishing out 11 assists in the process.

Watching three veterans catapult the Nets to a win vs another team aiming to capture the Flagg had to have been like soaking your eyes with vinegar for any tank commander. Had Johnson, Simmons, and Russell remained in street clothes, the Nets likely drop in the standings and ascend in lottery projections. Their impact cannot and should not be overlooked.

Let’s lean on the “it’s all to drive their trade value up” excuse while we still can though. We’ve only got three more weeks until it expires with the trade deadline. After that, their buckets, dimes, and boards might actually be all for nothing.

Clowney’s Confidence Survived a Big Test

Noah Clowney experienced his first scoreless run of the season last time out, even when the game gave him an extra five minutes to play with. But although he failed to find nylon in Utah, you wouldn’t have guessed it by how he played in Portland.

It took only 30 seconds for the Alabama product to crack the ice. He drained Brooklyn’s first look of the night, hitting his favorite variation of shot.

Less than two minutes later, Clowney splashed another three, quickly sweeping away any notion of a sophomore slump chasing him down midway through the season. For the game, he finished with 20 points while shooting 7-10 and 4-7 from deep. He also blocked a shot, came up with two steals, two assists, and five rebounds.

This wasn’t just a bounce back effort for Clowney in terms of his season, but a complete 180 degree flip. Clowney’s rocky shooting night vs the Jazz wasn’t just his worst of the season, but likely his career.

Clowney’s had scoreless games before, but never any with this many minutes played or shots taken. Before yesterday’s game, his most field goal attempts in a scoreless affair was two. His most minutes in one was 16. On Tuesday, he multiplied both those figures, playing 32 minutes and taking 10 shots.

The stretch big hasn’t given us any reason to fear for his confidence or assertiveness so far, but those factors often make or break both shooters and young players in this league. It’s encouraging to know Clowney has the mental prowess to withstand what was his most difficult professional test in both thus far.

Martin is Growing as a Passer

Tyrese Martin’s shooting is the first thing that gets everyone excited about, myself included. But as my DoorDash receipts from college will tell you, I’m as big a fan of sides as I am of any entree.

Martin’s fries, in this sense, is his passing, which he’s polished off as an impressive ancillary component of his game over the past two weeks, handling the rock more often with Brooklyn’s bevy of injured ball-handlers.

With the game on the line vs the Jazz, it was Martin who Jordi Fernández called upon to run the nearly game-winning pick-and-roll with Claxton. Brooklyn leading from start to finish yesterday diluted Sunday’s tension, but Martin displayed that same passing prowess again last night.

It’s one thing to throw a well-time lob, but to change hands mid-drive and do so is another, especially for a player less accustomed to running point. That was one of Martin’s three assists for the game.

Jordi Fernández has repeatedly mentioned that the Nets have full development plans in store for every Net, both those in Brooklyn and on Long Island. I doubt Martin’s ends with him becoming a pure point guard, but he’s starting to flash the tools many carry.

At the very least, his game’s beginning to round out, boding well for his career and the on-court Nets, both when they’re on the inside and outside of those Shawshank walls.