DETROIT — The last time the Nets faced Detroit, they let Andre Drummond bully them for 18 first-half points en route to a 34-point beating. At home no less.
But this time around, they held him to just seven points — only one in the first half — in escaping with a 101-100 win.
“Put a body on him. Put a body on him,” Rondae Hollis-Jefferson said of the key to slowing Drummond this time around. “It’s just being focused. You miss an assignment and on that one assignment, that one step Drummond gets on you it’s an offensive rebound.”
Drummond did grab 13 rebounds, but he had that in the first half alone in their last meeting. He finished with 22 points in that 114-80 Detroit rout, but had just seven on 3-of-8 shooting with five fouls Sunday.
In his second game back from knee surgery, D’Angelo Russell was on the bench late because of a minutes restriction. He finished with three points in 14:29, going 1-of-5 from the field.
“He’s just rusty,” coach Kenny Atkinson said. “This isn’t the ideal team to go against when they’re swarming, double-teaming the ball-handler. He did a great job in the first half getting rid of it. We got to the second side, a bump. It’s tough.
“When they’re double-teaming like that, you need to blow by it early or get it out of your hands. This is a tough team, a tough matchup. He hit a big 3 at the end of the [third] quarter. They came down and hit a 3 and he came back and hit a 3. So that was big. I think it’s normal progression. He’ll improve as he gets more games.”
Atkinson said Russell’s minutes limit will be loosened progressively.
“Yeah. And I think incrementally it’ll go up. So here’s Game 2, so I think you could see a little more there,” said Atkinson, who had 14 healthy bodies for the first time since Oct. 27. “A big luxury. I think it’ll help with our consistency. I think it makes it a little more difficult when guys are in and out of the lineup.
“It’ll be great the rest of the season, just establish a lineup, a set rotation, guys know when they’re coming in and when they’re coming out. So it’s a big help, a credit to our performance team. Those guys do a great job with our players, getting them healthy. So, looking forward to a healthy squad the rest of the season.”