By Tiffany Williams –
Brooklyn got blitzed, bruised and basically buried before the fourth quarter mercy minutes even arrived Monday night at the Barclays Center.
The Portland Trail Blazers walked into Brooklyn and treated the Brooklyn Nets like a lottery team that already knows the season is over — because that’s exactly what this looked like. Portland rolled 114–95 and the game was never remotely competitive.
Not for a second.
Portland led from the opening bucket and never trailed. Not once. Not even tied.
By halftime it was already drifting toward embarrassment, and by the third quarter the scoreboard read 91-60 — a 31-point avalanche that sucked the air out of the building.
The Blazers (33-36) looked like a team still trying to win games. The Nets (17-51) looked like a team counting ping-pong balls.
Toumani Camara played like the best player on the floor and didn’t even need many shots to do it. Camara poured in 18 points on 7-for-9 shooting, splashed two threes, grabbed five rebounds and finished a game-best +19. Efficient, physical and completely in control.
Rookie center Donovan Clingan bullied Brooklyn’s interior. Fourteen points, 11 rebounds, five offensive boards and constant second-chance damage. The Nets simply had no answer when the 7-foot-2 presence got position.
Deni Avdija was aggressive all night, finishing with 18 points and five assists while relentlessly attacking the rim and getting to the foul line 12 times. Jrue Holiday quietly orchestrated everything with five assists and nine rebounds, stabilizing Portland’s offense whenever things slowed down.
Scoot Henderson added 16 points off the bench in just under 20 minutes, knocking down two threes and pushing the tempo whenever Brooklyn’s defense started to sag.
Portland shot 51.3 percent from the floor and 42.3 percent from three. When a team shoots like that and also racks up 30 assists, the result usually looks exactly like this.
Meanwhile the Nets offense was the basketball equivalent of static.
Brooklyn shot just 38.4 percent overall and a miserable 26.5 percent from three despite attempting 34 long balls. The Nets actually took six more shots than Portland and still lost by 19 because so many of those attempts clanged harmlessly off the rim.
Nic Claxton grabbed 11 rebounds but scored only 12 points and was largely neutralized in the paint. Cam Johnson led Brooklyn with 17 points but the scoring never came in any consistent rhythm.
Chaney Johnson was one of the few bright spots, scoring 17 on an efficient 6-of-8 shooting night while adding nine rebounds. Ben Saraf chipped in 15 points and four steals. Tyson Etienne added 15 with three three-pointers.
But here’s the cold reality.
Those numbers came mostly after the damage had already been done.
The Nets trailed by double digits for essentially the entire night. Portland’s ball movement carved Brooklyn’s defense apart again and again, leading to open threes, clean paint looks and a massive 30-19 edge in assists.
And the most brutal stat of the night might be this one.
Time leading.
Portland: 47 minutes and 26 seconds.
Brooklyn: zero.
Not a typo.
Zero.
The Nets never once held a lead inside their own building in front of 17,030 fans.
When a team never leads, never ties the game and falls behind by 31 points at home, the box score stops being a recap and starts looking like an autopsy.
Portland played organized, confident basketball.
Brooklyn played like a team already mentally in April.