Thunder starting forward Kevin Durant had one of his top performances of the season, notching his second 40-point game.
Center Nenad Krstic and guard Russell Westbrook trailed Durant with 19 and 16 points respectively, and sixth man Nick Collison contributed 11, including seven in the first quarter.
Yi Jianlian was the top scorer for the Nets with 29 points to match his career high. Yi led the Nets scoring all night long while big man Brook Lopez couldn’t get the ball to land.
Lopez went into the half with just two points and finished the night with 10, undoubtedly because of Yi’s dominating presence inside. Yi had 20 field goal attempts to Lopez’s 11.
All of the other Nets starters managed to hit double-digit scoring, and point guard Devin Harris tallied 11 assists. But once again it wasn’t enough.
After three hard-fought quarters, the end of the third quarter and beyond was a blowout, with the Thunder holding the Nets to 17 points in the last 17 minutes of play. It ended with the same old story.
Losing It
The Nets didn’t bag a win this season until they beat the Charlotte Bobcats on Dec. 4 after going 0–18. That put them in the history books with the NBA’s worst season start.
After their win over Charlotte, it looked like there might have been a glimmer of hope for the team under the direction of new head coach Kiki Vandeweghe.
Vandeweghe—also the team’s General Manager—replaced Lawrence Frank in November and got the team their second win against the Chicago Bulls just four days after their first.
But the pendulum swung back hard after Chicago; two wins in three games was a fluke for the cursed Nets. Now, if 29 losses weren’t bad enough after Monday’s loss, it’s worth mentioning that the Nets are not just continuing to lose after Chicago, but are losing harder.
Only three of New Jersey’s last 10 losses have been within 10 points. That is a deterioration from before the Charlotte win, when the Nets had managed to pull within 10 or fewer points in 10 of their 18 early season losses.
The Yi Factor
Monday’s game was a third-straight strong performance for Yi, and the team is hoping he will stay strong with star player Chris Douglas-Roberts out day-to-day with a back injury.
Yi made his first appearance back with the Nets on Wednesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves after spraining his right MCL on Nov. 2 and getting 50 stitches in the lip after taking an elbow in practice, further postponing his return.
Yi scored 22 points in just under 30 minutes against the Timberwolves, prompting Vandeweghe to move the big forward back into the starting lineup for Saturday’s game against the Houston Rockets. Yi had 17 points in that game.
Now Yi has tied his career high after just three games back with the team, a promising return indeed. It still didn’t result in a win though.
“I can’t wait for the New Year, man. Bad karma, that’s what I think it is. So this New Year has to bring in some type of good luck for us,” Chris Douglas-Roberts recently told reporters.
But nine (Yi’s number) is auspicious in Chinese culture. Perhaps Yi can bring some of that good fortune to New Jersey as the Year of the Ox ends and the Year of the Tiger begins.
If not, the Nets could be looking at making history for the second time this season. The 1972–1973 Philadelphia 76ers went 9–73 to set the record for the league’s worst season ever. If the tide doesn’t begin to turn soon, the Nets could be on track to exceed the futility of those Sixers.
The Nets play their neighbors across the river, the New York Knicks (11–19) on Wednesday at the IZOD Center for their last chance to get one more elusive “W” before the year and decade ends.
It will be the third matchup between the teams this season and the Nets have lost all of them.
