PHILADELPHIA — Nic Claxton’s layup beat the buzzer — and beat the 76ers, 105-103, on Saturday night in a play he called one of the highlights of his career.
The Nets center put back a Keon Johnson miss, an acrobatic shot that just barely beat the clock and subsequently saw him “mobbed” by Ziaire Williams, Trendon Watford and the rest of the Nets before a stunned sellout crowd of 20,431.
“Originally, I didn’t even know that I did beat the buzzer, so I was just trying to process everything, and I was just looking in the crowd, just looking around. And I was like, ‘I think it was good.’ And everybody came and just mobbed me. It was a great feeling, a great feeling,” said Claxton. “It’s definitely top three [moments of my career]. All the years I’ve been hooping, it’s definitely three or two.”
It was a stark contrast, the sellout crowd having showered their Sixers with boos throughout the night and the Nets celebrating.
“Wild. Probably fitting,” Cam Johnson said.
It was a come-from-behind victory that some Nets fans will call Pyrrhic.
The Nets (21-35) pulled within a half-game of the Bulls for the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference.
The other way of looking at it is they fell out of a tie with Philadelphia and to the seventh-best odds in the draft lottery, just ahead of Chicago.
But for the Nets, this wasn’t a night about the draft. Instead, it was about the maturation of this team.
“We understand what’s at stake here. A lot of the joy in the locker room comes from winning and just trying to outdo expectations. That’s a big chip on our shoulder, a big source of pride for us, and we’re gonna continue to compete,” Cam Johnson said. “We’re far from a finished product, and we’re really at the beginning stages of figuring it all out, but we’re playing with that passion we need to have.”
Johnson had a team-high 23 points, including a game-tying 3-pointer with 3:19 left after having missed his first eight from deep.
Claxton added 16 points, nine rebounds, five blocks and the game winner to outplay a hobbled Joel Embiid.
The Nets built and blew a 17-point lead on the road against a Sixers team playing its Big Three — Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George — but didn’t waver. Down 100-97 with 2:43 left, they closed on an 8-3 run, including the tiebreaking putback.
“It says a lot. We didn’t fold. We were folding, but we didn’t fold all the way. Bend but don’t break. So, to be able to grind this one out on the road is big for our confidence as a team,” Claxton said. “And we’ve just got to keep building and go get Washington next.”
Philadelphia started its Big Three for just the 15th time. Still, the Nets — despite not having D’Angelo Russell or Cam Thomas — survived Maxey’s game-high 31 and gutted out the win.
Their ball handing consisted of recent 10-day signee Killian Hayes (who started at point guard in just his second Nets outing), forward Watford (16 points, six assists) and two-way Reece Beekman.
But the Nets ran their sets well, got just deep enough in the paint against the Sixers’ passive drop coverage and hit all of their first eight shots from the floor to take a quick 23-15 lead.
Claxton extended it to 71-54 against a clearly hobbled Embiid, who frequently rubbed his knee and sat the entire fourth with a wrap on his foot.
The Nets allowed a 15-5 run, and fell behind, 97-94, on Kelly Oubre Jr.’s follow dunk off Maxey’s miss.
But Johnson’s 3 tied it, and a Maxey 3 knotted it again at 103-all … until Claxton untied it.
“Great effort. I know that it wasn’t pretty at one point when we were down, but to keep believing and keep doing the right things, that’s the most important thing,” Nets coach Jordi Fernandez said. “That’s the growth that we want, one way or the other. I’m happy because of the win, but I’m really proud of everything.”
