Brooklyn Nets waste Kyrie Irving’s spectacular debut; 3 takeaways

2. Nets done in by a center and poor free throw shooting … still

Even during their playoff run last season, the Brooklyn Nets had two problems consistently throughout the season.

One was that opposing centers were prone to putting up huge numbers against the Nets. Last season, there were 47 20/20 games (points/rebounds) in the NBA. Seven of those came against Brooklyn. No other team surrendered more than four.

While Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t record a 20/20 on Wednesday, he unmistakably went off. Towns had 36 points on 11-of-22 shooting — dropping 7-from-11 from 3-point range — to go with 14 rebounds, three steals and three blocks.

Jarrett Allen actually did a solid job against Towns inside. But what Towns was doing behind the arc — jab step, step-back 3s by a 7-footer? Seriously? — was too much for Allen to contain. In fairness, Towns is a load for anyone to guard; he is a career 22-point, 12-rebound player for a reason, after all.

Ultimately, the Nets coughed this game up at the free throw line. Brooklyn was 15-for-26 at the stripe, a putrid 57.7 percent mark. It actually gets worse; everyone not named Kyrie Irving combined to hit just 6-of-16.

Last season, the Nets were 24th in the NBA in free throw shooting at 74.5 percent, leaving a lot of points on the table when one considers that Brooklyn was third in the league in free throw attempts at 25.5 per game, but only fifth in made foul shots at 19.0 a night.

Obviously, these are one-game sample sizes. The Nets could be an 80 percent team at the free throw line the rest of the way. But on the first night of their season, a couple of their issues from 2018-19 seemed to survive the offseason for a return in 2019-20.