NEW YORK — Coming into Monday’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Brooklyn Nets were riding high on a back of pulling themselves to within two games of the 10th-seeded Atlanta Hawks. However, it seems that Brooklyn did not do what it was supposed to to get ready for a hungry Memphis unit.
“We got good looks, we just didn’t convert,” Nets forward Cam Johnson said after Monday’s 106-102 loss to a Grizzlies team missing a host of their better players, including Jaren Jackson Jr. who was ruled out prior to tipoff. Johnson put up 18 points and five rebounds, but the main issue for Brooklyn was that they weren’t able to keep Memphis off the glass.
“Obviously, we got to the line and didn’t make those either,” Johnson said. The Nets lost the rebounding battle to the Grizzlies 50-33, including 15 offensive rebounds that led to 25 second-chance points for Memphis. More to the point, Brooklyn shot just 17-of-30 (56.7%) from the free-throw line, which marks their second-worst performance from the charity stripe this season.
The Grizzlies came into this game with the mindset of being physical from the beginning and making the Nets work for everything that they got. “I felt like you know our intentions were in the right place and we were getting good shots,” Johnson said. “They were crashing the glass hard and that’s kind of where they they beat us up that and uh you know the self-inflicted wounds that we had was enough for us to come out with the loss today.”
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