The Brooklyn Nets will look different when they visit the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night for their second meeting in two weeks.
On Sunday, the Nets traded Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton to the Los Angeles Lakers before their 102-101 loss to the Orlando Magic. In exchange, Brooklyn received D’Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis, and three second-round draft picks.
Finney-Smith and Milton had strong performances in Brooklyn’s 101-94 win over Toronto on December 19, with Milton scoring 12 points and Finney-Smith adding 8. Since then, the Nets have lost four of their last five games.
Meanwhile, the Raptors’ struggles have continued, as they lost their 11th straight game on Tuesday, falling 125-71 to the Boston Celtics. The 54-point loss was the biggest in Raptors’ history and the second-largest margin of victory in Celtics’ history.
With Finney-Smith gone, the Nets are expected to rely more on 20-year-old Noah Clowney. He played a solid 11 minutes against Toronto in December, recording 11 points and 9 rebounds. Clowney has started four of the past five games for Brooklyn, averaging 13.4 points and 4.4 rebounds during that stretch.
“There’s going to be minutes to play,” said Brooklyn coach Jordi Fernandez. “Someone else has to take on the responsibilities like assists, 3-pointers, and all that. Sunday was an example of that.”
Clowney had 13 points in 28 minutes against Orlando, hitting 3-of-5 from three-point range. However, the Nets lost a 21-point lead in the fourth quarter.
Clowney knows there’s room for improvement. “It’s a lot of things I can improve at,” he said. “Being consistent, staying cool. That’s probably the main thing. But it’s a lot of things I need to work on.”
Fernandez praised Clowney’s efforts: “He’s playing the perimeter spot one through four. He’s also playing the five. He’s letting it fly. Defensively, he’s finding a way to be physical without fouling. There’s a lot to clean up, but this is a process.”
The Raptors, on the other hand, have had a tough time for the last month. They committed 52 turnovers in the last two games, including 21 against Boston.
Although Toronto held Boston to 45 points in the first half, they only scored 35. Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic saw the team’s fight in the first half as a positive step after recent poor performances.
“I thought in the first half we came out and we had a lot of fight,” Rajakovic said. “To me, that was a step in a positive direction.”
But in the second half, Boston shot 74.4% from the field and 77.8% from three-point range, which allowed them to dominate.
The Celtics shot 54% from the floor, compared to the Raptors’ 31.4%, and 51.2% from beyond the arc, while Toronto made only 25%.
Rajakovic wants the team to “turn the page” and be ready for the Nets. “It should be motivation for us to come out and be very competitive,” he said.
The Raptors also played without Gradey Dick (hamstring) and RJ Barrett (illness) on Tuesday.
“There is a lot of adversity, and we’re feeling that adversity, and it’s good,” Rajakovic said. “We’re going to use that adversity to our advantage, to get information that we need to improve, to focus on the most important things and to see the growth. That’s what this whole season is about, and to also learn who can rise to the challenge and who cannot.”
