The Brooklyn Nets have already shown they can flip a game in a hurry. The harder part is doing it before they’re buried.
Brooklyn returns to Barclays Center on Sunday evening still chasing its first win of the 2026-27 season, with the Indiana Pacers coming in at 1-1. The Nets are coming off a 125-121 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night, a game that followed a familiar pattern: a rough start, a big deficit, then a furious late push that fell just short.
What Brooklyn did in the fourth quarter was real. Trailing by 22 entering the final period, the Nets outscored Cleveland 41-29 and trimmed the gap to two before time expired. Michael Porter Jr. paced the offense with 28 points and nine rebounds, Julius Randle added 23 points, six rebounds and five assists, and Egor Dëmin turned the closing stretch into his own little show, finishing with 22 points and burying four three-pointers in the fourth quarter alone.
That kind of finish is exactly what Jordi Fernández wanted to see. But the message after the game was just as clear: the Nets can’t keep saving their best basketball for the last 12 minutes.
"We got to jump into the game with the same mentality as we've kind of finished it," Dëmin said.
Brooklyn’s problem in Cleveland wasn’t the ending. It was everything that came before it. The Nets spent most of the night trying to climb back into the game after letting the Cavaliers build too much room early, and they also hurt themselves with 20 turnovers that became 23 Cleveland points.
That’s the kind of sloppiness that can make a night feel out of reach fast, especially against a Pacers team that has already shown it can punish sluggish starts.
Indiana was overwhelmed from the jump in Friday’s 121-105 loss to the Dallas Mavericks, falling behind 44-27 after the first quarter and 77-43 by halftime. The Pacers played much better after the break, outscoring Dallas by 18 in the second half, but the first two quarters had already put the game out of reach.
That wasn’t a one-off. In their season opener against the New Orleans Pelicans, the Pacers were outscored 35-18 in the second quarter and went into halftime down 10 before rallying after the break and pulling out a three-point win.
So there’s an opening here for Brooklyn if it can come out sharper than it did against Cleveland. The Nets will be playing the second night of a back-to-back, which adds another layer of difficulty, but they also get the chance to put Indiana under pressure early and make the Pacers chase the game instead of controlling it.
Pascal Siakam led Indiana with 23 points against Dallas, while Tyrese Haliburton posted 18 points, six rebounds and seven assists. Andrew Nembhard chipped in 16 points and five assists.
The talent is there, which means Brooklyn can’t count on another team’s slow start alone. It has to defend better, move the ball cleaner and keep the ball out of trouble.
The Nets will also have some availability issues of their own. Tyler Bilodeau remains out with a right shoulder sprain, and Mikel Brown Jr. will sit again as he continues working back from an ankle injury.
Brown is on a minutes restriction, and Fernández has said he will not play in back-to-back games for the foreseeable future. That leaves Brooklyn without another guard option on a night when depth in the backcourt already matters.
Indiana will be missing Johnny Furphy, T.J. McConnell and Ben Sheppard.
Even with those absences, the Pacers still have enough firepower to make life difficult if Brooklyn is loose with the ball or slow to get organized. That puts extra weight on the Nets’ guards, especially after Dëmin’s late burst offered a glimpse of what he can provide when he’s aggressive and confident.
Porter and Randle have already shown they can carry a scoring load. For Brooklyn to avoid starting 0-3, it needs more than that. It needs a cleaner game, a better defensive edge and, above all, a start that looks nothing like the first three quarters in Cleveland.
The comeback showed the Nets have fight. Sunday is about proving they can bring it from the opening tip.
Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. ET at Barclays Center.
In Other News...
Nets Already Face A Tough Michael Porter Jr Decision
Michael Porter Jr. gave Brooklyn an immediate reminder of why the Nets brought him in, scoring 26 points in the opener and giving the offense a needed jolt. He also looked the part of a wing the Nets can lean on, contributing across the board as Brooklyn opened the season with a clearer sense of his value on the floor than it has had since the move.
The harder question is what comes next, because Porter is playing on an expiring deal and the front office has to decide whether to make him part of the long-term picture or use him as a trade asset before his contract situation becomes even more complicated. A strong start only sharpens the dilemma for Brooklyn, which now has to weigh present production against the cost and uncertainty of keeping him beyond this season. [Read more 🡒]
Nets Are Taking A Cautious Approach With Mikel Brown Jr
Mikel Brown Jr. has only just started to ease back into the Nets rotation after the ankle injury he dealt with in the preseason, and Brooklyn is clearly not rushing the process. The rookie guard came off the bench for 20 minutes in each of the teams first two games, but the organization has put him on a minutes limit as he continues to work his way back.
Jordi Fernandez said that restriction is not about a quick ramp-up, which helps explain why Brown is expected to sit out the next game. For a Nets team trying to build continuity early, the approach fits with the broader rotation choices Fernandez made in the opener, when Drake Powell, Ben Saraf and Danny Wolf did not play as Brooklyn focused on the current group. [Read more 🡒]
Nets Already Face A Tough Early Test They Can't Afford To Flunk
The first week of the season has already handed Brooklyn a reminder that early losses can carry extra weight, especially when the margin for error is thin. The Nets dropped their opener to the Hornets, and now the attention turns to how they respond against a Cleveland group that is trying to steady itself after blowing a huge lead in its own opener, with Kenny Atkinson admitting the Cavaliers struggled once the pressure ramped up.
For Brooklyn, the matchup brings a few familiar stress points into focus at once. Containing Donovan Mitchell is never simple, and the Nets are also trying to sort through how their young pieces fit in at the start of the year. Egor Demin did not make a three-pointer in the opener, while rookie Mikel Brown Jr. showed flashes in his debut, leaving the Nets with both reasons for patience and reasons to demand a cleaner showing soon. [Read more 🡒]