Brooklyn Nets lose season finale to New York Knicks, 113-105

It was a reminder of what we’ve missed this season, as Brooklyn disappointed us by losing a game they truly wanted to win.

On Sunday afternoon, the Brooklyn Nets played the last regular-season game they’ll play for about half-a-year.

By October, they will look quite different. Only Head Coach Jordi Fernández is truly guaranteed to still be here in six months time, during which the franchise will have to make some tough decisions. Perhaps arranging the Mikal Bridges trade(s) was a complex process, but the decision to say ‘yes’ to the New York Knicks’ offer was easy.

Brooklyn’s 2025 NBA Draft carries similar weight. Whomever they choose with their lottery pick — and their other first-rounders — will steer the direction of this rebuild. And unless they land at #1 and get to take Cooper Flagg, there’s no easy choice. The same goes for what to do with their bountiful cap space this summer, as they are the only NBA team in such a position.

Those are tomorrow’s worries, though. Today, Sunday, the Nets had a game to win. For the first time all season, there were big-picture stakes that were undeniably helped by a Brooklyn win.

In closing the season against the aforementioned Mikal Bridges and his Knicks, Brooklyn’s incentive to win was clearer than it has been all season. All of New York’s starters besides Bridges were resting, with their playoff-seed locked up, and Bridges would immediately join them in a move very familiar to Nets fans…

This gave Brooklyn a real chance to win, right? Even without Cam Johnson, Day’Ron Sharpe, Ziaire Williams, and D’Angelo Russell, they still fielded a decent starting lineup.

In the first half alone, Keon Johnson, Nic Claxton, Trendon Watford, and Tyrese Martin all scored in double-digits. Martin in particular was impressive, creating his buckets from scratch…

“This summer, I was probably on my way out of my NBA career, if you think about it,” he reflected postgame. “Then I just stuck with the grind and the work started showing in games. And I got an opportunity. You know, they say you just need one coach to believe in you, and I feel like Jordi was that guy for me, gave me a chance, and I feel like I held up my end.”

Martin and Watford led Brooklyn in scoring with 20 points each, though Jalen Wilson was hot on their tails with 18 points, finishing the season scorching from deep. His 5-of-7 performance from deep on Sunday brought him to 51.1% in his final six games of the season, a minuscule sample size but still encouraging for his long-term prospects.

Buoyed by a sudden outburst of offense, the Nets took a four-point lead into halftime and expanded it to double-digits in the third quarter.

Postgame, Jalen Wilson said the effort embodied their season: “Jordi said on day one, you know, ‘get 1% better every single day.’ And I think that you just saw that through the summer, through the season. We just collectively came together, more and more with our effort, with our grit. And you know, we’re not going to win every single game, but I think every single game, we show how we can compete.”

Alas, the Knicks would close that quarter on a 19-4 run. Landry Shamet, who is no stranger to haunting Brooklyn’s drafts, led all scorers with 29 points and simply could not miss from three. Even more maddening was the Nets letting him get 13 long-range attempts off, of which he made seven.

Cam Payne and Deuce McBride formed something of a three-guard monster with Shamet, and New York shot 16-of-42 from deep on the day. In a game the Nets undeniably wanted to win, every swish hurt the soul, though maybe we’ve forgotten how to root for wins.

Sunday’s game wasn’t important enough for Knicks fans to flock to Barclays Center as usual, and many Nets fans came out to eulogize the 2024-25 season, or perhaps to jeer their rival at a surprisingly low price.

It created a feisty environment for the fourth quarter, and Brooklyn responded, as Fernández put four starters in for most of the fourth. Maybe he just really wanted to avoid the Nets’ tenth straight loss to the Knicks, following nine straight victories over the Manhattanites.

“I think rivalries are awesome,” Fernández said pregame. “I come from a city that, you know, rivalries are very, very — they’re a big thing. And I approach it the same way. You always want to beat them. You hope that they want to beat you, too, and you make it extremely competitive and you make it special.”

Well, Sunday was about as special as it could be, given the circumstances, and the Nets cut the deficit to a single possession in the fourth quarter.

That was as close as it’d get. New York’s ball pressure ate Brooklyn’s pseudo-ball-handlers alive, with the Nets turning it over 19 times and Watford, Martin, and Johnson combining for 14 of them. Curiously, Jordi Fernández did not play Claxton at all during the fourth quarter, simply saying “I wanted to see Drew [Timme] in that situation.”

Perhaps Clax would have helped, it’s likely Brooklyn still would have lost anyway. Turnovers, porous defense, and not enough shooting outside of Jalen Wilson sunk them.

Though a loss to the New York Knicks — particularly the tenth straight — always hurts, game 82 alleviated the pain of the previous 81 in some ways.

A loss with consequences sure is more aggravating than a loss that helps draft odds, and like it or not, that’s what the 2024-25 Brooklyn Nets’ season was largely about. All due respect to the culture and Jordi Fernández’s passion.

But now, the real work starts.

Final Score: New York Knicks 113, Brooklyn Nets 105

Milestone Watch

• Brooklyn finishes the season 26-56, tied with three others for their 12th-worst year ABA/NBA in franchise history.
• Jalen Wilson ended the season making four or more 3-pointers in each of the last three games, matching the longest such streak for a Net this season (Cam Johnson, Dorian Finney-Smith).

Frank DiGraci’s final game

Sunday’s game also marked the end of Frank DiGraci’s legendary tenure as producer of Nets on YES. After serving 26 years for YES Network, DiGraci will move to NBC Sports as that network resuscitates its NBA coverage following a 30-year hiatus.

DiGraci was the glue that made one of the best broadcasts in the league work, and can also take some credit in identifying the impressive roster of on-air talent.

Prior to the season finale of 2024-25, General Manager Sean Marks and the Brooklyn Nets honored DiGraci…

“How many minutes for Frank tonight?” chirped Ian Eagle from the back during a brief moment of pause.

The press room chuckled, then sighed as one of the true forces for good in the Brooklyn Nets universe got set to make his exit.

Next Up

Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images

The season is over. Following exit interviews on Monday, the Brooklyn Nets turn their attention to May 12, the day of the NBA Draft Lottery.

From there to the NBA Draft to the offseason to the beginning of 2025-26 training camp, which will arrive faster than you think, we at NetsDaily will have you covered. I’ll also be on the New York Liberty beat with Brian Fleurantin, and that team is in a much different situation than their brother franchise.

This is no goodbye. As Jordi Fernández called it, “the most important summer of our lives” awaits, and NetsDaily will be all over it. But we do thank you loyal readers and commenters for engaging with our work during this 26-win season. It wasn’t always easy. It wasn’t always fun.

But it shouldn’t be.

We hope our work did this season justice. Personally, I am tied to this team for life, the result of a mistake my five-year-old self committed, but one I don’t wish to undo. After all, it led me here.

See you soon.