INDIANAPOLIS — Lance Stephenson had the first laugh, but the Nets had the last.
Brooklyn’s own Stephenson stole the spotlight in Kyrie Irving’s season debut with a flurry of first-quarter points, but a late second-half rally propelled the Nets to a 129-121 victory at the Gainsbridge Fieldhouse on Wednesday.
The Nets snapped a three-game losing streak after embarrassing losses to the 76ers, Clippers and Grizzlies. They were on pace to extend that losing streak to four before coming alive in the second half.
That’s because Stephenson, the self-proclaimed “Born Ready” scorer and playmaker out of Lincoln High School, scored 20 straight points in the first quarter to blow the lid both off the arena and the game. Pacers fans cheered their former playoff star the second he entered the game and every time he touched the ball. He finished with 30 points on 12-of-19 shooting from the field and ended the first quarter with dazzling shots over both James Johnson and LaMarcus Aldridge.
But with their three superstars on the floor for the first time since last season, the Nets proved too capable and too talented for the undermanned Pacers to contain. Indiana played without five players in the health and safety protocols and another three conditioning after exiting the protocols.
In truth, the Pacers should never have run up a 19-point lead.
But for the first two-and-a-half quarters, the Nets’ defensive effort was missing-in-action. It was a far cry from the standard the team set in the first portion of the season, when they ranked top-five in defense and first in three-point defense. Led by Stephenson, the Pacers carved up the Nets in the first half, scoring 74 points in the first two quarters and 101 by the end of the third — the most points the Nets have given up in both time periods this season.
And then coach Steve Nash made the change that saved the game and prevented the Nets from dropping their fourth straight. After starting rookie David Duke Jr., Nash inserted DeAndre’ Bembry into the game late in the third quarter. Bembry, whose partially-guaranteed contract is a lock to be fully-guaranteed this Friday, made an immediate impact on both ends of the floor. His first plays were a driving layup, a chasedown block, and a basket in transition that forced a Pacers timeout.
The Nets outscored the Pacers by 24 in his 20 minutes on the floor. He finished with 12 points on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting from the field and registered five rebounds, two steals and two blocks on the night.
Irving exhibited clear rust, as expected of a player who hasn’t seen NBA action since last season’s playoffs. But he shook it off in spurts and finished with 22 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field. Irving went scoreless in the first quarter but scored eight in the second. He opened the lid in the third quarter, when he hit a buzzer-beating pull-up mid-range jump shot to make it a 101-94 game entering the final period.
The Nets never looked back and built a lead as large as 12 in the fourth quarter.
Kevin Durant finished with 39 points on 15-of-24 shooting, masking James Harden’s shooting struggles in a 5-of-12 night from the field.
