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CLEVELAND — The Nets desperately needed somebody other than Julius Randle and Michael Porter Jr. to step up.
Egor Dëmin did just that. But they had dug too deep a hole for the Russian’s late-game eruption and fourth-quarter shooting to dig them out of.
After dropping their home opener, Brooklyn followed with a 125-121 loss to the Cavaliers on Saturday night before a sellout crowd of 19,432 at Rocket Arena, including team owner Joe Tsai.
He made the trip to watch his team, and saw a heartbreaker.
The Nets trailed by 22 after a Jaylon Tyson 3-pointer in the fourth quarter before storming back to pull within four.
The Cavaliers had blown a 29-point cushion in losing at Philadelphia in their season opener. The Nets nearly pulled off a similar comeback. Nearly.
It was an encouraging performance for the Nets — who had dropped their season opener at home against Charlotte — and Dëmin, who had been horrible against the Hornets.
He acknowledged a need to improve, and did just that. Dëmin had 22 points, six assists and 5-for-10 shooting from 3-point range. He scored 15 in the fourth quarter, when Brooklyn sliced what had been a 22-point deficit to just two.
It will be enough to buoy his confidence. But it was almost enough to win.
“Yeah, I think it tells you a lot about how good of a leader he is at his age, because he has high expectations by himself,” coach Jordi Fernández said. “And like I talked to him this morning, keep getting aggressive, still the things that I want you to do and the team needs you to, you have to do it. Don’t get down on yourself.
“And the things defensively getting into the ball. He’s a big guard; we know he can rebound well, so help us there, too. All those things. Sometimes you think about it’s the first game, you want to see the ball go in; but sometimes just a good defense, a good deflection, a rebound also, gives you a little bit of confidence. And then things start happening. And I thought that that anxiety a little bit of the first day didn’t help. But that’s part of the NBA.”
With 23 points, six rebounds and five assists, Randle joined James Harden as the only Net with 20-5-5 in consecutive games to start the season.
But for much of the night, he and Michael Porter Jr. (game-high 28 points) were the only offense for Brooklyn.
And in the end, they fell to 0-2 with the tail end of a back-to-back coming Sunday at home against the visiting Pacers.
Donovan Mitchell led the Cavaliers with 22, while Jarrett Allen added 21.
The defeat in Cleveland started a string of six straight games against expected Eastern Conference playoff teams, contenders tabbed to win at least 44.5 games by Las Vegas bookmakers. In short, this could get worse before it gets better.
The first quarter was competitive and back-and-forth. That wouldn’t last long, the Nets not having much forth after that, until their late-game surge.
A Nolan Traore free throw put the Nets ahead 30-29 with 41.3 seconds left in the first, but they gave up a quick 11-0 blitz that spanned the periods.
Mitchell capped the Cavaliers run with a foul shot that left the Nets down 40-30 with 10:51 left in the second quarter.
They never led again the rest of the night.
Brooklyn closed within a point, when Dëmin found Keon Ellis for a 3-pointer that made it 45-44 with 5:45 remaining in the half. But they immediately surrendered a 13-2 run and lost contact.
Trailing by a dozen after Peyton Watson’s 3-pointer with three minutes left in the half, the game wasn’t close again until Dëmin caught fire.
Brooklyn trailed 104-82 with 9:29 left before they went on a run.
The Nets were still down 106-88 with eight minutes to play before Dëmin drilled three straight 3-pointers.
The last, off a Randle feed, made it 108-97 with 7:01 to play. And Porter’s 3-pointer pulled the Nets within 123-121 with 8.1 seconds left.
But they couldn’t get over the hump.