The Brooklyn Nets defeated the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday with 130-123 being the final score. It was a needed bounce-back victory from their 119-110 loss to the Charlotte Hornets as they continue to compete for play-in positioning.
It was a slow start for the Nets in this game. They were outscored in each of the initial two quarters and trailed 64-58 at halftime against one of the NBA’s worst teams. Detroit even trailed by as many as 12 points at one point.
“Yeah, that’s something that we have to work on. We can’t hang our hat on a second half. We have to play a complete game, because it’s not always going to be that easy to make that turnaround against great teams,” Nets center Andre Drummond said. “Not that the Pistons aren’t a great team, they played a hell of a game. We just turned it up in that second half and we can’t play like that. We have to do that the whole game.”
Cade Cunningham did his best to carry the Pistons to a win scoring 29 of his 34 points in the second half. However, Detroit did not have enough left in the tank to take down one of the NBA’s more potent threats.
Kevin Durant led the way with 22 second-half points while the Nets as a team scored 72 points with staggering efficiency. Brooklyn went 21-34 (61.8 percent) from the floor, 9-14 (64.3 percent) on 3s, and 21-23 (91.3 percent) on free throws during this 24-minute stretch.
Here are the player grades following the win: