Mar 05, 2020The Brooklyn Nets and San Antonio Spurs will be looking for answers -- a lot of them -- when they square off Friday night at Barclays Center in New York.While the Nets are in the playoff picture, carrying a 27-34 mark into Friday that's good enough for seventh in the Eastern Conference, the Spurs (26-34) are four games below the line in the Western Conference and can ill afford to fall any further off the pace.The Nets got run off their home floor on Wednesday, falling to Memphis 118-79 a night after rallying from 21 points down to win in Boston.Maybe that effort took the wind out of Brooklyn's collective sails, as the Nets shot just 33.3 percent from the field and hit only seven of their 42 3-point attempts in what finished as their most lopsided home loss since the team moved from New Jersey in 2012."Collectively we didn't like our compete level and our spirit wasn't where it needed to be," Nets coach Kenny Atkinson told reporters after the game. "We're obviously disappointed and frustrated that we couldn't build off a great win. Guys were a little frustrated we got down, we were missing shots, but we didn't have that fighting spirit that we normally do." Taurean Prince scored 15 points for Brooklyn, which lost for the sixth time in eight games. Caris LeVert and Chris Chiozza tallied 14 points apiece for the Nets, while Joe Harris had 13 in the second game of a road-home back-to-back."There's sort of this saying, 'fatigue makes cowards of us all,' and everybody's tired in the NBA at this point," Harris said. "Regardless of being on the back-to-back, this late in the season you've got to be able to grind through it." The Spurs are 6-11 in their last 17 games, but head to the Big Apple coming off a 104-103 win in Charlotte on Tuesday. San Antonio got 21 points from Dejounte Murray in the victory, which came with former Spurs player, and now assistant coach, Tim Duncan at the helm as Gregg Popovich missed the game due to personal reasons.Popovich will return to coach the team in Brooklyn."It's night and day to be in the big-boy chair," Duncan said afterward. "Truth be told though, I wasn't in the big-boy chair. I had (other assistant coaches) making the calls, and I was the one standing there screaming at people." Bryn Forbes had 15 points, Patty Mills added 13, and Derrick White and DeMar DeRozan each had 12 points for San Antonio, which trailed most of the game and shot 11-for-32 on 3-point attempts.Murray is averaging 14.9 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.9 steals over his past nine games, stepping up when the Spurs need him the most."His confidence and aggression are going up," Duncan said of Murray. "They are going in the right direction, and he's big for us. He's going to have to be big for us. He needs experience, he needs time on the floor, and he needs situational experience." The Spurs were without center LaMarcus Aldridge, who missed his fourth game in a row with a sore shoulder, as well as backup center Jakob Poeltl (right knee strain).San Antonio defeated the Nets 118-105 on Dec. 19 in the Alamo City in the teams' first meeting this season. The Spurs own a 29-18 edge all time in road games against the Nets.--Field Level Media
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