At first, it looked like there wasn’t going to be any offense, all night. From either side. With 4:45 left in the first quarter, Kevin Durant slid under Bobby Portis on a jumper, and was called for a flagrant foul. The score at that point was 9-9.
But after a dreadful first seven minutes, things picked up. Renowned Nets-killer Bobby Portis starting hitting threes, and the Nets found an unlikely spark in Edmund Sumner, who pushed the pace in transition, a space where Brooklyn’s offense hummed much more smoothly than in the half-court.
To end the first half, we saw our first extended glimpse of Ben Simmons playing the 5 - or at the very least, surrounded by four shooters.