Nets Beat the Pelicans 145-111: Porter and Demin Score 22 Each in Brooklyn's Fifth 145-Point Game
Brooklyn put eight players in double figures in New Orleans and scored 145 in a non-overtime game for only the fifth time in franchise history. New Orleans has now allowed 138 or more in three straight.
NEW ORLEANS — The Brooklyn Nets did something on Wednesday night that the franchise, counting its years in New Jersey, has done only five times in its history: score 145 points in a game that did not go to overtime. Brooklyn beat the Pelicans 145-111 in New Orleans, with the scoring spread so evenly that the rout reads like a roster exercise.
Michael Porter Jr. scored 22 points, and Egor Demin matched him with 22 of his own — in Demin's case, in his return from a six-game injury absence. Julius Randle added 17, Noah Clowney and Moritz Wagner added 16 each, and eight Nets players finished in double figures in all.
New Orleans got 29 points from Zion Williamson, and almost nothing that could be called resistance. The Pelicans have lost four games in a row, have allowed at least 138 points in each of the past three, have lost their last two by more than 30 points — and on Sunday night lost by a franchise-record 51 points, 138-87, to Golden State. Wednesday's 34-point defeat fits the pattern rather than breaking it.
The two directions out of the Smoothie King Center could hardly be clearer. Brooklyn leaves with a franchise-history scoring night built on depth rather than a single star turn; New Orleans leaves with a defensive streak — three straight games of 138 or more allowed — that no amount of individual scoring has been able to outrun.
