The Brooklyn Nets got the better of the New York Knicks in their first two encounters of the 2019-20 NBA regular season. But the Knicks fought back on Wednesday night, taking the third game with a surprising 94-82 win, thanks in large part to Julius Randle's game-best 33 points.
It also did not help that Brooklyn came up with arguably their worst performance of the season, managing to put up a measly 82-point output on just 21-for-78 shooting from the field (26.9 percent). Brooklyn also recorded the worst shooting percentage in the league since the 2011-2012 season.
The Nets appeared flat from the get-go and trailed by as much as much as 23 points to the lowly Knicks.
Brooklyn guard Spencer Dinwiddie opened up about the team's disastrous 48 minutes, in an ESPN report by Malika Andrews.
“We were really, really bad,” he said. “Like laughably bad. We shot really bad. Probably historically bad.”
The 26-year-old guard was so baffled by his team's uncharacteristically poor showing, that he resorted to jokes about how his team enjoyed the holidays a little bit too much.
“Let's go with too much eggnog,” he said. “I don't know what else to tell you.”
Another alarming statistic from the Nets' crushing defeat was their mediocre output from the perimeter. All 30 teams have been employing a three-point heavy offense in today's game, but Brooklyn's total of eight two-point field goals was simply inexcusable.
According to Elias Sports Bureau, Brooklyn's output was the fewest in any game since 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons and Minneapolis Lakers each made four field goals. That same match ended with a final score of 19-18.
The Nets and Knicks, meanwhile, still have one game to conclude their rivalry this season. They face each other for the fourth and final time on January 27.
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