NEW YORK — Spencer Dinwiddie looked at the scoreboard, the time left on the clock, and slapped his hands in frustration.
Brooklyn’s starting point guard just blew it — and he knew it.
Dinwiddie went to the foul line with the Nets down three and had an opportunity to make Thursday’s Game 3 in Brooklyn a one-point game. The first free throw bounced on the rim four times before falling into the net.
The second clanked off the rim into Sixer possession.
And on the next possession after the Nets got a defensive stop, Dinwiddie advanced the ball and blew by Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey for a layup that would have tied the game.
By the time he let it go from his hands, Sixers’ presumptive MVP Joel Embiid rotated over for the rejection.
And on the ensuing possession, after P.J. Tucker missed a free throw that kept it a one-possession game, and after a Jacque Vaughn timeout for a drawn-up play, veteran guard Royce O’Neale had his pass intercepted by De’Anthony Melton, who took the ball the length of the floor to finish with a dunk that gave the Sixers a five-point lead.
Ball game. The Nets had their chances. They couldn’t take advantage and lost, 102-97, moving into an 0-3 series deficit no team in NBA history has ever overcome.
If the Nets needed a saving grace in their first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers, it came in the form of an unlikely whistle at the bottom of the third quarter in Game 3 on Thursday.
Ex-Nets star turned 76ers point guard James Harden drove into O’Neale with less than a minute left in the third period and made fist-to-groin contact officials deemed an offensive foul.
When O’Neale stayed on the ground, hunched over in pain, officials went to the booth to review whether or not the play qualified as a hostile act.
It did: They assessed Harden a flagrant foul penalty two and tossed him from the game.
Just moments later, starting Nets center Nic Claxton was also ejected for picking up his second technical foul. Both came in the form of taunting Embiid after highlight-reel finishes.
In the first quarter, Claxton stepped over Embiid after a one-handed alley-oop finish sent the Sixers’ big man tumbling to the ground. At the top of the fourth, Claxton dunked on Embiid then stared him down for several seconds. Officials immediately tossed the fourth-year big man from the game.
Thursday’s showdown in front of a sold-out crowd at Barclays Center was a must-win for a Nets team that entered the series already facing long odds as a No. 6 seed attempting to upset a third-seeded Sixers team with championship expectations. Those odds worsened when the Sixers won both Games 1 and 2 at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center.
Only 7% of teams to lose the first two games of an NBA playoff series have come back to win the series.
