Listless Nets handled by Heat as losing streak hits nine with tanking race tightening

Brooklyn is the coldest team in the NBA.And the hottest team in the tank race.The Nets looked more interested in enjoying South Beach than playing basketball, hammered 124-98 by Miami in front of a sellout crowd of 19,700 at Kaseya Center on Tuesday night.It was the kind of desultory performance one would expect after a night out on South Beach.

But now the Nets have a day off before facing this same Heat team again on Thursday, mired in the league-worst nine-game losing skid.“[I want to see them] ready to fight,” coach Jordi Fernández had said beforehand.“We’ll face a top four defensive team, a team that’s very physical, that they use their hands very well, that you’re going to have to handle their physicality.

And that’s good for us.It’s going to help us.

It’s going to make us bring the best of ourselves.We want to compete.”There wasn’t a lot of competitiveness out of the Nets (15-46) on Tuesday.

They were utterly ineffectual against Miami’s aggressive zone defense.Brooklyn shot just 38.4 percent and 6-for-32 from deep.They committed 18 turnovers and got outscored 20-11 off those giveaways.Michael Porter Jr.

was held to just nine points, shooting 3-for-17 and 0-for-9 from behind the arc.Noah Clowney led the Nets with 17 points, and Ziaire Williams added 16.Rookie point guard Nolan Traore had 14 points but committed six turnovers without a single assist against that Bam Adebayo-led defense.

With Egor Dëmin out, Ben Saraf was the backup point guard and had six more turnovers.Sign up for Inside the Nets by Brian Lewis, exclusively on Sports+.

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Enjoy this Post Sports+ exclusive newsletter! While the Nets are tanking, the Heat are laser-focused on playoff seeding.Adebayo had 23 points, nine rebounds and a career-high six steals while Tyler Herro added 22.Brooklyn was down just 52-47 with 5:1...