Nets teenager Egor Dëmin’s Utah homecoming was a victorious one.
The lottery pick — who played in-state at BYU — had the best night of his impressive rookie season, leading the Nets to a 109-99 win over the Jazz before a sellout crowd of 18,186 at Delta Center to snap a league-worst seven-game losing skid.
It was the team’s first victory of the season without Michael Porter Jr., having gone 0-8 previously without their leading scorer.
But Dëmin filled the void with his first-ever double-double: 25 points and 10 rebounds — both career-highs — plus four assists. He went 6-of-12 from deep — the first Nets rookie with six 3s in multiple games. His 34th straight game with a 3-pointer marking an NBA rookie record.
Dëmin started alongside Nolan Traore and Danny Wolf, marking the first time the Nets had started three rookies since Dec. 18, 2021. Wolf had 14 points and five boards, Traore seven points and six assists.
Cam Thomas scored 21 off the bench, while Day’Ron Sharpe added 16 points and nine rebounds against undersized Utah.
Lauri Markkanen and Jusuf Nurkic were out for the Jazz, who have dropped nine of 10. But the Nets won’t feel sorry in the least.
“It means a lot,” said Dëmin in an on-court TV interview. “It’s the first [time we won] the second game of a back-to-back. Winning the first game without Mike; he’s a big, big, big part of our team. But we’ve got to be able to function without him too. So that win means a lot, especially for me being back home I can say so. It’s pretty fun.
“It’s very special, especially having some of these people that mean so much for me and just feeling this BYU love from here. It just very special.”
Trailing 30-26, the Nets mounted an extended 22-6 run that spanned the first and second quarters. Thomas scored 12 straight Nets points, and Nic Claxton’s bucket off a Jalen Wilson feed capped the run for a 46-36 lead.
Then it was Wolf who found Claxton to push it to 52-38 with 4:52 left in the half.
The Nets allowed a 16-2 run that spanned intermission. Jazz rookie Ace Bailey — a lottery pick out of Rutgers — knotted it at 54-all.
The second half was tooth-and-nail.
It was knotted at 83-all after another Bailey score to open the fourth, but the Nets reeled off an 8-0 run and never tailed again. Thomas found Wilson in the corner for a 3 and a 91-83 lead.
A couple of late Dëmin 3s padded the cushion to double digits at 100-90.
The Nets (13-34) now sit fifth in the lottery race, a game behind Washington and one ahead of Utah for sixth.
