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Brook Lopez led the way with 20 points in three quarters as the Brooklyn Nets outlasted an under-strength Chicago Bulls 93-89 at home on Friday. |
It took a final quarter comeback led by the bench for the Nets to prevail against the Bulls, who were without the services of Carlos Boozer and All Star Joakim Noah because of injury.
The Nets improved to 28-19 as Joe Johnson and MarShon Brooks impressed with 13 points apiece. Brooks nailed nine of his in the final quarter when Andray Blatche scored all 11 of his points.
“It’s huge, especially when a lot of our starters didn’t have it going tonight,” Nets
guard Deron Williams told reporters.
“It was good that those guys came in and stepped up for us. Without them, we don’t win this game.” Coming in as the best road team in the Eastern Conference, Chicago dropped to 28-18 after just their third loss in 11 games.
While they shot 91 percent from the free-throw line they could not find their range from the three-point arc, making just one of 14.
The Bulls, also still without Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich, were best served by Luol Deng with 18 points, while Taj Gibson battled hard for 16 points and nine rebounds.
“This is good for our team,” Gibson said. “It’s all for the better come playoff time when we get everybody back and we’re fully healthy, we feel like we’ve got a shot of winning the East.”
Gay makes instant impact for Raptors
Rudy Gay made an instant impact in his first game with the Toronto Raptors on Friday, coming off the bench to score 20 points and lead his new NBA team to a 98-73 rout of the Los Angeles Clippers. The Raptors acquired Gay and centre Hamed Haddadi on Wednesday from the Memphis Grizzlies in a three-team trade that saw Toronto ship out Ed Davis, and Spanish guard Jose Calderon. Calderon landed with the Detroit Pistons, who sent Tayshaun Prince and Austin Daye to Memphis. Gay, energised by a warm welcome from fans at Air Canada Centre, made half of his 16 shots from the field. “It felt great, it’s exciting what they did today,” Gay said. “They make you want to play hard.”
Three other Toronto players scored in double figures, including Amir Johnson who had 19 points to go with a career-best 16 rebounds. DeMar DeRozan added 19 points and seven assists and John Lucas scored 17.
Blake Griffin led the Clippers with 17 points and nine rebounds. Jamal Crawford chipped in 14 points, but the Clippers lost for the fifth time in their last seven games as they played without point guard Chris Paul—who missed his sixth straight game with a bruised right kneecap.
Los Angeles were also without forward Matt Barnes, who was suspended for the game by the NBA for striking Minnesota’s Greg Stiemsma in the neck in the second quarter of a victory over Minnesota on Wednesday. Gay opened his Toronto tenure by scoring seven points in the first quarter. He entered the contest with 5:10 remaining in the period and little more than two minutes later finished off an alley-oop dunk off a pass from DeRozan. Gay added a second alley-oop dunk as the first quarter was winding down. He said he thought he and his teammates, in particular DeRozan, could mesh even better once they’d had more time to train together. “DeMar is one of the best players I’ve ever played with,” Gay said. “We’re going to keep practicing together and get better setting these things up.”
The Raptors led by at least 16 points for all of the third quarter and their lead grew to as high as 31 points in the final period as they held the Clippers to a season low in points.