As Brian Lewis pointed out Sunday, the Brooklyn Nets need a closer ... bad. It’s not just that they lost two games because Donovan Mitchell and Luka Doncic hit clutch shots late to beat them in the final minutes. It’s also a continuing trend.
Lewis wrote:
Brooklyn had a minus-24.3 clutch Net Rating after the All-Star break last season. The only teams that were worse were the lottery-bound Pistons and Trail Blazers. The league defines “clutch” as a game within five points inside the last five minutes of regulation or overtime.
And their best player following the deadline trades, Mikal Bridges, had a tough time.