NEW YORK — Over the past two weeks, the biggest issue for the Brooklyn Nets was either maintaining their leads in the fourth quarter or getting back into the game from a big deficit. While the fourth quarter was not an issue this time around, there was one common theme in yet another loss.
“Just execution,” Nets guard Cam Thomas said after Thursday’s 96-94 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, their third loss in a row. Thomas put up 25 points and six rebounds off the bench for Brooklyn and was playing so well that he earned the long-awaited chance to finish the game. However, execution was still an issue at a certain point in this game.
“Getting stops at the end,” Thomas explained. “It wasn’t really crucial, Rudy (Gobert) had the alley-oop dunk, then we came down. We executed well, we got fouled at the end, but we just missed the free throw.”
Ironically enough, the Nets won the second half 46-36 thanks in large part to the efforts of Thomas, but the main issue in this game was the second quarter. In the period, the Timberwolves outscored Brooklyn 36-17 thanks to Minnesota getting contributions across the board while Thomas was the only source of scoring for a Nets team that allowed the Timberwolves to shoot 63.6% from the field.
It seems that Brooklyn is still struggling to put together a complete game from start to finish and against teams like Minnesota, one bad quarter can make winning the game highly unlikely.
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