NEW YORK — There have been times, after a loss, that Spencer Dinwiddie would shuffle into the middle of a throng of reporters and dissect each mistake the Brooklyn Nets made. There have been times after losses that he scowled, sighed in disappointment and curtly answered questions.
After Thursday’s 94-82 loss to the New York Knicks, though, Dinwiddie couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“We were really, really bad,” Dinwiddie said. “Like laughably bad. We shot really bad. Probably historically bad.”
Not only were the Nets’ 82 points a new season low, they also shot just 26.9% from the field (21-for-78) — the worst shooting percentage by any team since January 2012. The only other team to shoot under 30% in a game this season was the Chicago Bulls, when they shot 29.9 percent in a loss to the Toronto Raptors on Oct. 26.
It gets worse.
According to research by the Elias Sports Bureau, Brooklyn’s eight 2-point field goals were the fewest by a team in any game since 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons and Minneapolis Lakers each made four field goals. That Lakers-Pistons game became famous for its final score of 19-18.
“We were all searching for our shot,” Jarrett Allen said. “We could’ve moved the ball more, but at the end of the day we were all frustrated.”
The game got ugly early on. Brooklyn built a small lead, but then the Knicks went on a 15-2 run and quickly built a double-digit lead over the Nets. At halftime, Brooklyn trailed New York by four. The Knicks came out of the break on a 16-4 run. By the third quarter, the Knicks had a 20-point lead.
New York would lead by as much as 23 points. Asked how it was possible that the Nets allowed a bottom-dwelling team to snuff out any offensive flow, Dinwiddie shrugged.
“Let’s go with too much eggnog,” he said. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Perhaps rust played a factor. After all, the Nets hadn’t played since Dec. 21. The one bright spot for the Nets was they held the Knicks to 94 points — the third-fewest Brooklyn has allowed in a game this season. Julius Randle led the Knicks with a game-high 33 points. The loss snaps a three-game losing skid for New York.
“They just outplayed us, plain and simple,” Atkinson said.
The Nets are about to embark on a tough Western Conference road trip, facing the Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves before returning to Barclays Center.