The Long Island Nets opened play in the NBA G League Winter Showcase at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas without two players that had started every game for them this season.
No matter. Jordan McLaughlin scored a career-high 32 points and Alan Williams added 24 points and 14 rebounds as the Nets blew the game open in the third quarter en route to a 110-100 victory over the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.
Dzanan Musa, the first-round pick of the parent Brooklyn Nets, and Theo Pinson, on a two-way contract with Brooklyn, had started each of Long Island’s first 16 games this season.