Day’Ron Sharpe proving he’s ‘a beast’ for Nets in place of Nic Claxton

Brooklyn center Nic Claxton missed a second straight game due to a personal matter, though he is expected to rejoin the Nets on Monday.

But Day’Ron Sharpe showed they’re in good hands in his absence.

The burly Sharpe had another strong game in lieu of Claxton, with 17 points, six rebounds, four assists, three steals and just a single turnover in a win over Denver.

“DayDay is a beast. He’s a starting five in the NBA,” Michael Porter Jr. said.

Sharpe added: “I’ve been in the league five years now, so just every summer, just every game, really, when I’m not playing a lot of minutes, running, lifting. When I’m the only big, just picking and choosing my battles of when to go for a hard contest I know I can’t get, or when to go for a steal if I know I can’t get in foul trouble. It’s just maturity, learning as I’ve been in the league.”

---

Cam Thomas came off the bench again Sunday, scoring 17 points in his microwave-scorer sixth-man role.

But the way he did it was noteworthy.

After a scoreless 11-minute first half with only a single shot, Thomas had all his production after the break.

He shot 5-for-9 overall in 11:27, though head coach Jordi Fernández said the eruption had more to do with game play than mindset.

“I thought he kept making the right play because they were blitzing him,” Fernández said. “And every time they blitzed him, he got the ball to the open man, and we’re finding the right shots. A lot of times when you get blitzed and you find the player in the middle, you don’t get the assist because the ball goes in the middle, from the middle to the corner or whatever the case may be. But you’ve created that.

“And Cam’s impact in the game was big in the first half because he was unselfish and he created those shots, and big in the second because some of the things that he did, they couldn’t blitz him and he found himself and to the rim he found himself doing what he does, making tough shots. And he ended up with 17 points. The plus-minus doesn’t really make a lot of sense. But everything was positive.”

---

---

---

Nikola Jokic was out for Denver with a bone bruise in his left knee and Cam Johnson — who the Nets traded to the Nuggets for Porter — was sidelined with a bone bruise in his right knee.

---

Noah Clowney had 22 points, six rebounds and was a plus-18 in a solid bounce-back performance.

The young forward shot 6-for-10 overall and 4-for-6 from deep with a late-game block.

It marked his fifth 20-point night of the season.

---

The Nets had a season-high six players muster at least 13 points in Porter, Clowney, Sharpe, Thomas, rookie Egor Dëmin and Ziaire Williams.

The last will feel robbed of three after beating the halftime buzzer with a three-quarter-court heave that was initially signaled as good, but was waved off due to the Trent Tucker Rule.