The Brooklyn Nets head to Indianapolis looking for a much-needed win against the playoff-bound Indiana Pacers on Thursday night in the first of a back-to-back between the two teams.
Brooklyn (23-46) has limped through the past four weeks, losing 11 of 13 games to fall out of the race for a play-in spot.
The Nets enter the Thursday contest coming off a 104-96 road loss to the Celtics on Tuesday, falling despite Boston being without stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Brooklyn did beat Atlanta 122-114 on Sunday for just its second win since Feb. 22.
There were a few small pluses from the Boston visit that Nets coach Jordi Fernandez hopes his team can take into the two-game mini series against the Pacers.
“(Boston) is playing for different goals and they have different goals, but it’s just another game,” Fernandez said. “Now going into a doubleheader with Indiana and that’s going to be a different team, so you just have to move on to the next one. Obviously, we want to learn from what we did (Tuesday). The physicality and the defense we brought in, the rebounding against a bigger team. Keep the positives, try to clean up the negatives, find those 3-point shooters.”
D’Angelo Russell paced the Nets with 18 points and seven assists against the Celtics. He is averaging 13.5 points and 5.8 assists per game since he was acquired from the Los Angeles Lakers in a December trade.
Cameron Johnson, who scored 11 points on Tuesday, will sit out on Thursday as the team gives him a rest.
Indiana (39-29) enters the Thursday game coming off a turbulent 135-131 win over the visiting Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday.
The win puts the Pacers one game ahead of the Milwaukee Bucks and the Detroit Pistons in the race for the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Indiana lost four out of six games from Feb. 28-March 10 but has since won four of the past five.
Bennedict Mathurin rescued the Pacers against the Mavericks, putting up 16 of his 23 points in the last six minutes. Indiana grabbed the lead on a 3-pointer by Andrew Nembhard with 14.7 seconds remaining, and the Pacers sealed the win by going 4-for-4 from the foul line in the final seconds.
Indiana led by 16 in the first half before coming back late for the win.
“Our guys just hung in,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “These games coming up are all going to be like this. These teams coming in here are attacking teams and you’ve got to take the fight to them.
“We did a pretty good job in the first quarter, and then we had a letup. Then, of course the third and early fourth was very poor, and fortunately, we were able to get things back together. You can’t make a living with this kind of inconsistency.”
Pascal Siakam, the team’s leading scorer (20.8 points per game), paced the team with 24 points against Dallas.
