Tag: Bruce Brown

Brooklyn’s first five vs. Warriors did something no Nets starting group has since 1999

The Brooklyn Nets were clicking on all cylinders once Sunday, making fairly easy work of the Golden State Warriors.

Oddly enough, Kevin Durant’s two performances against the Golden State Warriors have been among his lowest-scoring games of the 2020-21 season. He scored 22 in Brooklyn’s opening night win, and finished with 20 in the Nets’ trip to California on Saturday. But, in both instances, the Nets have won — most recently by a score of 134-117. Kyrie Irving led the Nets this time around with 23 points and James Harden had 19.

So, how did the Nets manage to put up 134 points when their big three only accounted for 62 of them? With the exception of Noah Vonleh in his three minutes of action, every Net who took the floor scored at least eight points, with Jeff Green leading Saturday’s reserves with 14.

As for Brooklyn’s other two starters, Joe Harris had 15 points and Bruce Brown went off for 18 — making Saturday’ win over the Warriors the first time all five Nets starters scored 15-plus points in a regulation game since April 16, 1999, per ESPN.

The Starting lineup from that game: Stephon Marbury, Kendall Gill, Scott Burrell, Keith Van Horn and Jamie Feick.

This post originally appeared on NetsWire. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

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Here is the projected rotation for the Nets after trading for James Harden

The Brooklyn Nets made an earth-shattering move, adding James Harden to a roster that already had superstars Kevin Durant and James Harden.

The Brooklyn Nets made an earth-shattering move, adding James Harden to a roster that already had superstars Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

Note that the Nets still have three roster spots available for additional moves, so they might not be done making acquisitions quite yet. ESPN’s Bobby Marks reported that Brooklyn can offer the taxpayer midlevel exception ($5.7M) and the minimum exception.

He also speculated that they could receive a disabled player exception ($5.7M) for the injury suffered by Spencer Dinwiddie, who is out for the remainder of the season with a partially torn ACL.

Here is how the roster looks, as it stands right now, to get a better idea of what holes must be filled.

Nets vs. Nuggets: 3 things we learned from Kevin Durant’s big night

Kevin Durant went off against the Denver Nuggets — and the Brooklyn Nets about needed that type of performance.

The Brooklyn Nets haven’t experienced a winning streak yet this season — they’ve won back-to-back games twice — but they also haven’t gone through a losing streak either, never losing more than back-to-back games. Tuesday’s game against the Nuggets was a gut check for the Nets with Denver taking control early after Brooklyn had to witness more drama surrounding Kyrie Irving as he remains unavailable due to personal reasons, while the NBA announced it was looking into a video where the point guard was at a large gathering without a mask.

The Nets worked through the adversity and are back to an even .500 after the 122-116 win. Here are three things we learned from the game:

Can Bruce Brown make up for Spencer Dinwiddie’s absence?

Bruce Brown certainly took advantage of the opportunity Steve Nash gave him against the Utah Jazz on Tuesday.

It’s only been one game, but the Brooklyn Nets may have found a solution to the recent problem they encountered. As much as Spencer Dinwiddie could score from anywhere on the floor, he had clearly changed his focus and altered his game coming into the season to serve as the ideal complement to Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. So, losing him to ACL surgery was a significant blow.

While Bruce Brown can’t score like Dinwiddie, he’s capable of doing some of the same things — and is a stronger defender, too.

“I definitely look forward to those matchups,” Brown said on a Zoom call with reporters after covering Donovan Mitchell on Tuesday. “That’s what I’m here for. So, I’ll leave the scoring to Kyrie and everybody else who scores the ball. I’m here to play defense, to make the hustle plays. I’m kind of pissed I didn’t have a steal today. I think I need to start, I need to get more steals to help us out on the defensive end.

“But Ky, man, I just push the ball and try to find him. Give him the ball. He [is] gonna score, man, any way possible. So just try to get him the ball. He was hot. Yeah, that’s really it.”

It’s just one night, but there’s no question Steve Nash needs to give Brown a chance to prove he can replicate what he did against the Jazz on a consistent basis.

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Kevin Durant delivered message to teammates once he learned about his quarantine

Kevin Durant has no shortage of faith in his Brooklyn Nets teammates.

The Nets’ loss to the Charlotte Hornets was the start of a very difficult week for Brooklyn. The next day, the Nets found out they’d have to move forward without Spencer Dinwiddie after he was diagnosed with a partially torn ACL. After receiving the news about the guard, the Nets went 1-3. Then Brooklyn found out on Monday that Kevin Durant will miss at least four games as he serves out his quarantine, per the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols.

Yet, somehow, the Nets pulled out a huge win over the Utah Jazz, despite the fact the starting five of Kyrie Irving, Bruce Brown, Taurean Prince, Jeff Green and Jarrett Allen had never played together as a unit until Tuesday.

Maybe it had something to do with the message Durant sent to all of his Nets teammates after he found out about his quarantine.

“Kev texted us an said, ‘Next man up,'” Brown said on a Zoom call with reporters after Tuesday’s win. “We’re all ready. We all know, when our time comes, we’re gonna be ready. People took the challenge tonight to step up and play well, and we did that.”

Sure seems like Durant’s message worked.

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Bruce Brown well aware of what his role will be in Brooklyn

While the Brooklyn Nets acquired Landry Shamet and Bruce Brown in the same deal, the two guards are far from the same player.

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Bruce Brown is an athletic guard who can provide a burst of energy off the bench. He can make an explosive play at the rim on the offensive end and also showed significant improvement with his long-range shooting in his second NBA season, shooting slightly below league average (34.4%)

But the Nets didn’t acquire the guard from the Detroit Pistons in their three-way trade that also delivered Landry Shamet to Brooklyn from the Los Angeles Clippers.

And Brown knows that.

“Scoring-wise, that’s (Kevin Durant), Kyrie (Irving), we’ve got Caris (LeVert), Joe (Harris),” Brown said on a Zoom call with media Saturday. “I think I just come in and bring a dog mentality on the defensive end and match up with the best offensive player every night.”

Being a dog on the defensive end isn’t anything new to Brown either. That mentality helped him earn significant minutes in his two years with Detroit, turning him into a desirable player for the Nets.

“Obviously, (I was) a second-round pick (in 2018); thought I could have went higher,” Brown said. “So, I went in with the mentality of knowing what I can do, knowing my role early, locking in on the defensive and really pave a way for myself to play a little bit.”

That doesn’t mean Brown doesn’t expect to provide some assistance on offense. He thinks his playmaking ability will surprise some, as well.

Brown just knows his role — which, again, is a big part of why he should prove to be a great addition to the Nets.

“I think if you watched me play this past year, I’ve showed flashes of doing a little bit of everything out there,” he said. “I think I’m the only guard in Pistons history to have three games in a row with 10 rebounds, so I think I can do a little bit of everything out there, getting assists, and scoring if I need to.”

Jaylen Hands sent to Pistons with Dzanan Musa in deal delivering Nets Landry Shamet, Bruce Brown

After spending all of 2019-20 with Brooklyn’s G League affiliate, the Long Island Nets, Jaylen Hands is on his way to Detroit.

The Brooklyn Nets made the Landry Shamet trade officially on Thursday, and it turns out the three-team trade that was agreed upon with the Los Angeles Clippers and Detroit Pistons was even bigger than initially expected.

The Dzanan Musa for Bruce Brown trade between the Nets and Pistons was also part of this deal. Along with the Saddiq Bey — the No. 19 pick in this year’s draft — Jaylen Hands is on his way to Detroit as part of the deal.

Brooklyn also gave the Pistons the draft rights to Jay Scrubb, the No. 55 pick in this year’s draft, as well as Toronto’s 2021 second-round pick.

In addition to Shamet, the Nets acquired the No. 57 pick in this year’s draft, Reggie Perry, from the Clippers.

The Clippers acquired forward Luke Kennard, center Justin Patton, Portland’s 2023 second round draft pick and Detroit’s second round draft picks in 2024, 2025 and 2026 in the deal.

Los Angeles also delivered Rodney McGruder and cash considerations to the Pistons.

Report: Nets trading Dzanan Musa, 2021 pick to Pistons for Bruce Brown

Dzanan Musa’s days with the Brooklyn Nets appear to be at an end, with the franchise moving him in exchange for another 2018 draft pick.

Back in 2018, the Brooklyn Nets took Dzanan Musa in the first round of the NBA draft with the No. 29 pick. After two years with the organization, it appears the 6-foot-9 Bosnian wing’s time in Brooklyn has come to an end.

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Nets are sending Musa to Detroit, along with Toronto’s second-round pick in the 2021 NBA draft, in exchange for combo guard Bruce Brown — who the Pistons selected in the same draft the Nets took Musa, but with the 42nd overall pick (No. 12 in the second round).

In his two years with the Nets, the 21-year-old Musa appeared in 54 games at the NBA level (five postseason games) and in 48 games for Brooklyn’s G League affiliate, the Long Island Nets — averaging 19.5 points and 6.9 per game for the latter.

Brown only spent two games in the G League as a rookie, starting in 99 of the 132 games in which he’s played for Detroit the past two seasons. The guard shot 34.4% from deep last season after shooting 25.8% from three as a rookie.

In his sophomore campaign, Brown also averaged 8.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.1 steals per game while playing 28.2 minutes a night.