Nets Pound Pelicans For Much-needed Bounceback Win

NEW ORLEANS — The Nets came to New Orleans desperate for a bounce-back win. And they made it look easy in the Big Easy.

What Brooklyn got was a bounce-back beating, pounding the pitiful Pelicans 145-111 before 15,043 at Smoothie King Center on Wednesday night.

In a matchup of slumping teams coming off humbling losses, the Nets were the ones who showed some steel.

They lost to the Mavericks by 37, while the Pelicans were stinging from the worst regular-season defeat in their history, a 51-point humiliation to Golden State.

On Wednesday, a Brooklyn team that looked in disarray in Dallas put up their highest-scoring first half in years, led by as many as 41 points and welcomed back Egor Dëmin with a resounding rout.

It was a rare laugher for the Nets (3-8), a complete team victory. Even without point guards Nolan Traore and Mikel Brown Jr., the Nets handed out 30 assists to just 15 turnovers. They shot 57 percent and 20 of 41 from deep.

And Michael Porter Jr. and Julius Randle looked like the veteran leaders they’re being paid to be. Not because they were good, but because they made others better.

The former had a team-high tying 22 points, while the latter was a plus-38, tying Stephon Marbury for the best in franchise history for a road game.

“I just told Ju, me and him [are] going to have to take it on ourselves to get us organized and be in the right place, be involved in the offense,” Porter said. “So we were just trying to communicate more, make quicker decisions and get into things quicker.”

“We’ve got a lot of capable guys. I don’t know how many people are in double figures. It seemed like a lot, though. So we got capable dudes. And when we share the ball like that, everyone gets to have fun, feel like they’re in a rhythm. We can be pretty good offensively.”

It was eight in double figures, but six with at least 15 points — Dëmin, Porter Jr., Randle, Day’Ron Sharpe and backups Moritz Wagner and Noah Clowney — to tie a franchise record.

For a bench that has struggled, that kind of balance was key.

Brooklyn came out of the blocks quickly, with Danny Wolf — who had another double-double — giving them a 12-5 lead.

It was 39-25 by the end of the opening period, their second-highest scoring first quarter of the last two years. It got better in the second half.

For much of the early part of this season, the Nets bench has struggled. On Wednesday night, they didn’t just hold their own, but were additive. And that’s even without their pair of 20-year-old point guards.

Wagner had seven points in the first quarter and 13 by the break.

He had a ferocious dunk on Jordan Poole for an and-one that put the Nets up 31-19, and followed with a nice drive and a flex afterward.

Brooklyn took an 83-66 cushion into intermission when Randle found Terance Mann for a last-second 3. It was their highest-scoring half since Dec. 21, 2022 (when they had 91 against Golden State).

“We executed really well offensively in the first half, and when everybody touches the ball, everybody sees the ball go through the net, it’s a lot more fun. You play with a lot of effort,” Wagner said. “We’ve got to find a way to do it in games where the ball doesn’t go through the rim as much, but of course that was an 80-point half and I think that was a lot of fun for everybody.”

It became an outright laugher in the second.

A putback dunk by Noah Clowney (who had a bounce-back 16-point night) padded it to 104-77 with 3:36 left in the third.

And unlike Atlanta to start this trip — when they blew a 17-point lead and fell to the Hawks — this time the Nets actually built on it, padding it to 41.

“We’ve got to bring the same energy, same focus to every game,” Sharpe said. “No matter the score, no matter what’s happening, no matter who’s out, we all got to approach the game the same way.”