BROOKLYN, N.Y. _ The Nets just keep finding ways to win basketball games.
Against a Nuggets team with only six losses on the season, the Nets delivered their opponent their seventh with a 105-102 win at Barclays Center on Sunday.
It was night-and-day compared to the last time these two teams played. This is the same Nuggets team, after all, that came back from down 16 to beat the Nets, 101-93, back on Nov. 14 in Denver.
That, though, was a game Kyrie Irving played in. Sunday's matchup was not.
Neither have the past 12 games, of which the Nets have won nine. This team has grown without their stars, with Caris LeVert also out with a thumb injury. What the Nets displayed in their latest victory were the two keys to their success without their two starting play-makers: defense and ball movement win games.
But so does having a go-to scorer in crunch-time of a tight game _ a role the team was expected to lean on Irving and LeVert for. It's been Spencer Dinwiddie, continually coming through in the clutch for the Nets.
Sunday was no different.
Dinwiddie only scored four of his 24 points in the fourth quarter, but both of his baskets came in the final minute of the game when his team trailed by one. Dinwiddie made the layup that gave the Nets a 103-102 lead with 26 seconds to go in the fourth. The Nuggets never responded.
The Nuggets' game plan in this one seemed obvious: run the offense through Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, and take away the three-point shot from one of the NBA's more trigger-happy teams. It worked: Jokiuc and Murray combined for 45 points, and the Nuggets limited the Nets to just seven threes made on 28 attempts.
But the Nets continue to find ways to win, this time on the defensive end, holding Denver to just 102 points on 40% shooting from the field. This team isn't better without Irving and LeVert _ but they're playing like a team that hasn't missed a beat.
What happens when their stars return from injury? Do the Nets regress, or do they pickup steam?
