Poor shooting plagues L.I. Nets in defeat

Despite a 10-point lead at one point in the third quarter, the Grand Rapids Gold, the G-League affiliate of the Denver Nuggets, handed the Long Island Nets a 101-92 loss on Thursday, Feb. 29, seeing the end of a two-game win streak.

Guard Kennedy Chandler and center Noah Clowney led the home time with 23 and 19 points respectively in the effort. Chandler also pulled down six rebounds and five assists.

While the first half was dominant, with the Nets leading 26-24 in the first quarter and 23-18 in the second, the third quarter is where the Nets began to unravel.

“I feel like we got complacent,” said forward Jaylen Martin. “I feel like on the overall game we just got to keep our foots on their necks so just keep going hard and not letting up throughout the whole game.”

“We can’t have moments like that, we got comfortable,” Chandler said. “We had a 10- point lead, it was 60-50 and they made a stretch. Last thing I know, I’m looking up and we’re down.”

In the fourth, the team was out-played, 34-20 Gold.

“They just played harder than us in the last quarter,” Chandler added. “We know we should be 3-0 in our last three games.”

Poor shooting from deep played a heavy role in the loss, with Long Island going 6-for-30.

“We weren’t making threes,” Chandler said. “We should have been driving, we were in the bonus every time and we were settling for threes. We just can’t let that happen.”

With the season dwindling down to just over a dozen games, including a long stint away from home court, the team must shape up if they want to stay afloat in playoffs.

“We got ignite and Westchester for our last two home games, then we got this road trip, so we just trying to win out,” Chandler said. “Winning a g-league championship with the long island nets, first making the playoffs and winning out, that’s the main goal. Lock in and using every single game and not take a quarter off.”

After this, it’s short term memory to move on to the next matchup.

“You just don’t think about it; on to the next,” chandler explained. “If you’re a shooter, I tell my guys ‘I’m gonna find y’all,’ [Keon Johnson] missed shots that I know is money and a lot of us missed threes today. i kept telling them to keep shooting. We just got to learn to move on from missing threes.”