Brooklyn Nets lose heart-breaker at the gun to New York Knicks, 124-122

“I think that if you’re a fan, and you bought tickets for this game, or you were were watching it on TV at home, it was a really fun game. So credit to everybody for being part of it.”

Those were the first words out of Jordi Fernández’s mouth after Friday’s contest against the New York Knicks.

The Brooklyn Nets’ first In-Season Tournament game was set up for a whole lot of storylines. It was their first matchup against their rival New York Knicks this season. Thus, their first game against old frenemy Mikal Bridges. Bridges kept his comments leading up to the game predictably benign, simply saying it’d be “good to see my guys. I’ve got a lot of good friends over there.”

And since Friday’s contest kicked off the NBA Cup, it was also set to be Brooklyn’s most colorful game of the year…

Furthermore, it’d be Brooklyn’s tiniest game of the season. The Knicks were already without Mitchell Robinson and Precious Achiuwa, each down with a long-term injury, but Karl-Anthony Towns was ruled out after a game-time decision didn’t go his way.

Brooklyn’s own center rotation was decimated too; Day’Ron Sharpe is still without an update on his record from a hamstring injury, and early on Friday, Nic Claxton was ruled out with a back injury (more on that later).

But fun? It didn’t look like it was going to be fun after becoming clear early on that Brooklyn was most hurt by their lack of size. With only a hair of rim-protection to offer, Brooklyn allowed the Knicks to shoot 21-of-26 from two in the first half. They didn’t even get killed on the glass; then again, the Knicks didn’t need many second-chance opportunities.

Oddly, the Nets attempted to play drop-coverage against many of New York’s pick-and-rolls, and when that didn’t work, they doubled Jalen Brunson with the same (lack of) success. Their back-line help — in either coverage — just wasn’t imposing enough…

And yet, it was still a game at halftime, thanks to one man. One man who has always enjoyed playing any Madison Square Garden.

On Brooklyn’s first possession of the game, Cam Thomas stepped back into his office and nailed a shot with his heels on the 3-point arc. A couple possessions later, he made a wide-open catch-and-shoot three. Then another three. Then another one. You see where this is going…

Through two dozen minutes, Thomas had scored 27 stone-cold points on 10-of-11 shooting, only letting the mask slip briefly at half’s end, flexing all over Brunson after finishing a tough layup in transition.

And yet, Thomas’ brilliance wasn’t enough by itself to make the game fun. It was more of a footnote, albeit a frenetic, occasionally jaw-dropping footnote. He’d finish with 43 astounding points, the difficulty of his buckets increasing uniformly with New York’s defensive pressure…

Though Thomas acknowledged he was a bit star-struck to see Tom Brady sitting court-side, he dismissed any notion of being extra juiced to play the Knicks in MSG, despite his ever-growing track record: “I just try to play whoever’s out there playing, no matter where we’re playing. I just try to put my best foot forward and play to the best of my ability, no matter who it is.”

But to make up for their porous defense, Brooklyn needed everybody to catch fire, and that proved too big an ask. It was a brick-fest by any means, with the Nets shooting 41.3% from deep overall, but even that wasn’t gonna do the job on Friday night. They needed transcendence, not just efficiency.

Dorian Finney-Smith shot 4-of-6 from three, but Cam Johnson crashed back to Earth, shooting just 3-of-10 from the floor despite seeing some real good looks. Same for the 4-of-17 Dennis Schröder, and no, Ben Simmons did not add much of a scoring punch…

Conversely, all the Knicks needed to do was shoot adequately from deep to build their game-high 21-point lead, as Brunson and OG Anunoby were surgical in and around the paint.

That assignment fell squarely on the shoulders of Mikal Bridges, and the ex-Net ran with it. Bridges would finish with 22 points, only letting his former teammates truly hear about it once…

Still, Finney-Smith admitted it was weird to see Bridges on the other side, but only for a moment: “For sure. [Then] I told him if he hits another three in the corner, I’m gonna slap the **** out of him. And he made another three in the corner.”

And while DFS did not slap his former teammate, he did bring the extra-curriculars. Early in the fourth quarter, when OG Anunoby ran through Finney-Smith’s screen, Brooklyn’s bruiser didn’t take kindly to it, shoving Annoy to the ground. Double-technicals were assessed and the game moved on, leaving behind any outside-the-lines action right there.

Both teams played hard, as Rasheed Wallace might say, but the Bridges story was a non-factor for most of the night, despite his strong play. Thomas did what he does, nailing some crazy shots, but the Nets just couldn’t guard defend inside the arc.

A nice, neat storyline at the Garden on Friday night, if ultimately unsatisfying, right? Wrong. And that’s where the fun came in.

Down by 18 points, Jordi Fernández opened the fourth quarter by playing a starter-heavy lineup against New York’s reserves. When asked if that decision was about Brooklyn’s big deficit or about the game being part of the Emirates NBA Cup, Fernández said it was “a little bit of both.”

“I think I would have done it regardless, because we’re down 18, and you got to make the push. And now if you make a run to start a fourth, you guys know how the NBA works, it’s a game of runs.”

Indeed, Brooklyn made their run immediately. It took them three minutes to cut the deficit in half, and Tom Thibodeau followed Fernández’s lead by yanking his bench. And yet, Brooklyn kept pushing. They continued to make threes, they pushed the ball in transition, and most critically, they worked together to keep Brunson and company out of the paint…

It was a top-down effort. Fernández won two key challenges — one of which fouled Anunoby out — crediting assistant coach Connor Griffin as “the best challenge coach in the league.” On the flip side, Thibodeau lost his challenge.

All of that led to Dennis Schröder spotting up in the left corner, with the Nets improbably trailing by two. Cam Johnson had just snagged an offensive rebound in the opposite corner, enveloped by three Knicks, the sideline, and the baseline. Somehow, he maintained the wherewithal to not call the timeout his team didn’t have, instead wriggling out of the jam, then watching the ball ultimately swing to Schröder, who put his previous misses behind him.

Cash money. Nets up 122-121.

It felt like the sequel to Brooklyn’s 28-point comeback in MSG three seasons ago, punctuated by the highlight of Cam Thomas’ rookie season. Schröder has silenced a crowd that for two-and-a-half hours, reveled in taunting Brooklyn supporters about Ben Simmons and the Mikal Bridges trade, only to swallow their throats over the game’s final five minutes.

Twelve seconds away from a stunned, silent ride down the Garden’s labyrinth of escalators, Brunson scored his 37th point of the night, then Bridges blocked his first shot to turn that angst right back around on Nets fans…

The small lineups, the Bridges trade, the tangerine court, all of that pales in comparison to a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, only to be snatched away again, by Mikal Bridges and the Knicks, no less.

Postgame, Fernández said he was “very happy, very happy for our guys. The effort, obviously. Losing is not what we want, it’s not fun, it’s a matter of a great player making a tough shot at the end, but we gave ourselves a chance, and that’s our identity. That’s what we want to do. We want to keep fighting, even though it’s not perfect, just cover for one another.”

Fernández was correct all night long. He won pivotal challenges, then he came into the press conference and rightfully praised his team’s effort. And yes, he was right that the game was fun. Hell the fourth quarter was more than fun, it was a blast.

But the aftertaste? Not so much. What an incredible win, it was not.

Final Score: New York Knicks 124, Brooklyn Nets 122

Injury Report

Nic Claxton was initially listed as questionable with lower back tightness for Friday’s visit to MSG, only to be downgraded with a worse diagnosis than mere tightness: a lower back strain requiring an epidural injection, and a timeline of one week before his next update.

Though Fernández said he wasn’t “super concerned” pregame, he did say the issue had been “lingering” for a few days leading up to Friday’s epidural injection. While this is the first news of any back issue for Claxton, he said after Wednesday’s loss to the Boston Celtics that he “wasn’t feeling great,” though did not elaborate.

As for Claxton’s backup Day’Ron Sharpe, the initial eight-week timeline for re-evaluation on his hamstring injury has now passed; expect an update shortly on both him and Trendon Watford, who has missed Brooklyn’s last five games since re-aggravating his own hammy last week.

However, there has been an update on Bojan Bogdanović’s left ankle, with Brian Lewis of the New York Post reporting that the team expects his return to the floor some time in December.

“We’re not gonna give an exact date, but he’s doing good,” said Fernández. “He’s in good spirits, he had a good week, he was with us on the road.”

NBA Cup standings watch

Here’s how the In-Season Tournament standings look in Brooklyn’s group after Friday’s round of games…

As a refresher: Each conference has three groups, and the winner of each group will advance to the knockout stage, along with the two best runners-up. That Brooklyn lost Friday’s game by just two points bodes well for their chances, but they may need to run their table in their next four games to have a chance at advancing.

Next Up

Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images

We’ll keep it right here, only this one won’t count toward the Cup. Brooklyn’s rematch with the Knicks — also at their place — will tip-off at 7:00 p.m. ET on Sunday night.