Even with the Brooklyn Nets welcoming back Ben Simmons last night, they were still shorthanded in more ways than one.
Brooklyn didn’t just walk into the bout without their three leading scorers last night — they did so with a rebuilding agenda, wielding a rotation almost entirely comprised of developing youngsters and/or reclamation projects. That’s as big a disadvantage as any vs a title pursuant team like the Denver Nuggets.
It took two frames to take form, but Nikola Jokic and company eventually proved that theory, gagging the Nets with a 20+ point deficit early in the third.