The Brooklyn Nets hope to leave a dismal finish to 2023 behind them Tuesday night when they visit the Southwest Division-leading New Orleans Pelicans at the Smoothie King Center.
The Nets (15-18) completed last year’s portion of the schedule with a 124-108 defeat in Oklahoma City on Sunday night.
The loss was Brooklyn’s third in a row, eighth in 10 contests and dropped it to 0-2 on its ongoing four-game road trip, which will conclude Wednesday night in Houston.
Mikal Bridges scored 15 of his 22 points in the first quarter on New Year’s Eve against the Thunder, handed out seven assists and grabbed seven rebounds.
But the Nets misfired on 34 of their 46 attempts from 3-point range, with Bridges clanging all but three of his 10 shots from beyond the arc.
“You look at the stat sheet and we did some really good things tonight,” Brooklyn coach Jacque Vaughn said after his struggling unit turned the ball over just six times while forcing Oklahoma City (22-9) into 13 giveaways.
“A lot of our shots were open tonight,” Vaughn added. “We sprayed that thing around and we were really unselfish and getting each other good shots tonight. … It was just one of those nights the ball didn’t go in for you.”
Cam Thomas scored 20 points off the bench in his new role as a reserve, going 7-of-18 from the floor.
Brooklyn allowed the Thunder to bury 54 percent of their shots, including an eye-popping 18-of-33 (54.5 percent) from long range.
“Probably the only thing we kind of fought each other all night was the transition and knowing, coming into this game that they’re elite at getting downhill and getting transition,” Vaughn noted.
“So a couple of those timeouts I had to burn was to address that.”
The Pelicans (19-14) have won two straight, including Sunday’s 129-109 rout of LeBron…
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