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Rookie Mikel Brown Jr.’s NBA debut was one of the few Nets bright spots in a season-opening disappointment.
The Nets lost 110-103 to the visiting Hornets, though their lottery pick showed some flashes in his first game.
“Man, I can’t even put it into words, man. It’s great,” Brown said. “At the end of the day, I still wanted to win. That’s the biggest thing when it comes to that stuff. But I was excited to be out there.”
Brown finished with six points, three rebounds and three assists with just one turnover.
After missing the first three preseason games with a rolled left ankle and not suiting up until the finale, Brown was on a minutes limit.
He logged just 19:48 off the bench, after playing 18 minutes in the preseason finale in Miami.
Brown checked with 3:57 left in the first quarter, and scored his first points on a strong drive into Charlotte center Moussa Diabate for an and-one 1:40 later.
He looked fairly composed and comfortable on the ball, but did get sped up at times and shot just 2-of-8. The rookie guard also tried to posterize Hornets big man Naz Reid.
“Yeah, really just got to slow down, pick my spots better. I’ve been talking to Julius [Randle] about it, just trying to slow down. Everything I want is there. It’s just all about me being patient,” Brown said. “And on the defensive end, just keeping that same mentality of not letting the guards touch the paint. There’s a lot of things that I can clean up. But it’s Game 1. We’re going to get better.”
Egor Dëmin started at point guard, but struggled on his drives. While he did touch the paint, unlike last season’s rookie campaign, he was ineffective when he got there.
Brown showed downhill juice, and threw a nice behind-the-back pass to Randle for a 3-pointer.
“He’s going to be great, man. That play was fun,” Randle said. “His vision, I’ve said it from the beginning, but his vision and understanding how to play and make reads off of pick-and-rolls or just make the right play every single time comes really natural to him. So he’s going to be amazing.
“He did great. He did exactly how I’d expect a first-year player to do first game. He was aggressive. I can tell he’s a little sped up at times, but he’s going to continue to get better and better. His future is going to be really, really bright in this league and I put it on myself to try to help him accelerate his growth because he’s going to be a big part of this team and can help us win a lot of games.”
Nolan Traore had three points on 0-for-4 shooting with no assists, two turnovers and a minus-13.
Mo Wagner was a team-worst minus-15 in 15:49.
Tyler Bilodeau (right shoulder sprain) was the only Net unavailable.
Kon Knueppel (hamstring strain), Coby White (calf strain) and Grant Williams (hamstring strain) were out for Charlotte.