NEW YORK _ After the Nets' season-opening loss in Boston, Jeremy Lin said he and the rest of the veterans were inspired by the game-ending defensive effort shown by youngsters Isaiah Whitehead and Chris McCullough that made a blowout loss close in garbage time. Lin said he hoped the Nets could capture that same passion in their home opener Friday night at Barclays Center.
They did. After trailing for much of the game, they turned up the defensive pressure in the fourth quarter and finally got some three-pointers to drop on their way to a 103-94 victory that had the home crowd rocking in appreciation of a team few expect to exceed last season's 21-win total.
After struggling on defense throughout the preseason, the Nets came out clawing and scratching in the fourth quarter, forcing the Pacers into a cold stretch in which they missed eight of their first nine shots of the period and committed a turnover. When Greivis Vasquez hit a three with 7:09 to play, they had turned a seven-point deficit into an 83-81 lead.
The Nets' run to open the fourth quarter extended to 22-6, ending with a pair of threes by Sean Kilpatrick for a 94-85 lead. The crowd was chanting, "Defense! Defense!" when Justin Hamilton obliged with a block at the rim against Myles Turner, and the place erupted when Brook Lopez converted a layup at the other end for a 99-89 advantage with 2:00 left to play.
Lopez, who scored only seven points in the opener, bounced back with 25 points, shooting 10-for-18. Lin had a spectacular home debut as starting point guard with 21 points, nine rebounds and nine assists. Kilpatrick was terrific off the bench with 18 points, and Trevor Booker added 10 points and 11 rebounds. Paul George topped the Pacers with 22 points, but they shot only 37.8 percent from the field and made just six of 21 fourth-quarter shots.
After an opener in which Lopez played only 21 minutes and wasn't getting the ball, it seemed clear that his teammates were working hard to get the big man more involved.
"I think he's learning our offense, and our players are learning him, where he wants the ball and how he wants it," coach Kenny Atkinson said before the game. "In our motion offense, there's plenty of opportunities to get him the ball on the blocks. We don't call a ton of plays. It's more in flow.
"It's going to take time, but I'm pretty confident it's going to be a good balance with Brook. I want balance _ on the post, on the elbow, in the corner for threes. I think he's supremely skilled and he can do all of it."
Sure enough, Lopez got the Nets' first two touches, making a jumper in the lane and missing a corner 3. But he was out of the game after another missed three, and the Pacers moved out to a 27-20 first-quarter lead.
Lopez started the second quarter and immediately asserted himself with six points in an 11-3 surge in which the Nets took their first lead at 31-30 on Kilpatrick's 3-pointer. The Nets pushed their lead to 50-43 at the end of an extended 33-16 run. But that lead shrank to four by halftime.
Unlike the opener in Boston, Lopez started the second half and scored the Nets' first four points, but during that stretch the Pacers put together an 11-0 run for a 61-56 lead that was fueled partly by two Lopez turnovers. Still, when he sat down, they trailed by only two points, but the Pacers then put together a 17-9 stretch that included five points each by Paul George and Joe Young to take their biggest lead at 79-69 late in the third quarter.
