DALLAS — Usually Julius Randle feasts on home cooking. But Sunday the Dallas native’s return to Big D couldn’t have gone much worse.
The Nets took a 130-93 beating at the hands of the Mavericks on the tail end of a back-to-back.
Though Randle had averaged 23.5 points, nine rebounds and 4.8 assists in his trips back here, the veteran forward struggled with just 13 points, four boards, three turnovers and finished a wretched minus-33.
“You look at the stat line and it’s 50 percent from the field. The turnovers sometimes, especially the bad ones in transition, and those are the tough ones,” Jordi Fernández said. “But even though it says four assists, I think he created potential assists. It was like a lot of them. And that’s the way we want to play with moving the ball, touching the paint, spraying it for 3.
“So I was happy with the approach. It’s just like we didn’t see the ball going enough times. And then we didn’t defend well at all. So you combine those two things and that’s what happened. You lose by a big margin.”
The Nets were short-handed in the backcourt, missing both Egor Dëmin and Mikel Brown Jr.
Dëmin sat out a sixth straight game, after which the Nets will reevaluate the young guard’s leg injury. The Nets are slated to practice Tuesday in Dallas before playing Wednesday in New Orleans.
Dëmin suffered a right leg bone bruise in an Oct. 27 overtime loss at Boston. Two days later, the Nets announced he’d be reevaluated after one week.
Meanwhile, Brown still has not been cleared to play in back-to-back games.
After center Day’Ron Sharpe entered Sunday’s game with 21 assists in his last two games — including a Nets center record 13 during a triple-double Saturday night in Atlanta — he added six more against the Mavericks.
“Yeah, I mean, he’s been unbelievable. [Saturday] a triple-double. I was proud of him, and impressed,” Fernández said. “I’m very, very happy with him, as hard as he plays. And he’s about the right things. And he has the right intentions.
“So we’re going to continue to grow and grow with him. And like you said, he was very efficient playmaking for his teammates.”
Nolan Traore finished with 14 points, his fifth straight in double figures.
Danny Wolf added 10 points and three rebounds, getting another start in the backcourt.
Noah Clowney fouled out in just 7:47, putting the Nets in a bind.
“Yeah, that’s something that he’s got to figure out. He put us on the bonus right away in one minute, and that’s tough,” Fernández said. “I think that it comes from a good place, because I know he is an extremely competitive guy. But then doing the war on your own, it’s just tough at times.”
