The biggest games of the season have seen Brooklyn’s worst slump of the season.
After yet another fourth-quarter failure on the defensive end, the Nets fell to the Mavericks, 113-109, before a sellout crowd of 4,602 at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
The Nets (43-24) have dropped three straight to Dallas and four of their last five. Few will be more costly than this one.
Brooklyn has lost a season-worst four straight, along with any realistic hope of earning the top seed in the Eastern Conference, barring a major collapse by Philadelphia. The Nets have seen what had been a 3 ¹/₂-game edge on idle Milwaukee cut to just a half-game, with the third-seeded Bucks holding the tiebreaker.
Kyrie Irving poured in a season-high 45 points, with five rebounds and four assists. But Kevin Durant was the only other Net to top 11 points.
Durant was off his game despite scoring 20 points. He shot just 7 of 21, and 0-for-4 from 3-point range. He hit only 1 of 10 from the floor in the second half, and once again it was the fourth quarter that came back to haunt Brooklyn.
After having allowed an 18-1 fourth-quarter run to lose two days earlier in Milwaukee, this time it was a 13-2 spurt.
Dallas scored the final seven points of that span, a Dwight Powell reverse and turnaround bank hook, followed by Dorian Finney-Smith’s 3-pointer off a Luka Doncic feed. That left the Nets down 99-92 with 5:57 left. They never got closer than three, and fell to 9-11 in games that James Harden has missed.
Doncic had 24 points, 10 boards and eight assists for the Mavericks (38-28). Tim Hardaway Jr. added 23.
The Nets faced three separate double-digit deficits before they’d even gotten out of the first quarter, the last 37-27 after a Jalen Brunson 3-pointer with just over a minute left in the opening stanza.
But the Nets mounted a 17-5 run that spanned the periods. Irving sparked the run, and Bruce Brown closed it with a cutting layup to put Brooklyn ahead 44-42 with 6:16 left in the half. It was tooth-and-nail until intermission.
Doncic initially appeared to hurt himself, landing awkwardly near the scorer’s table after a step-back 3. But the Mavericks star was either sandbagging or just a fast healer, because he drilled 3s on the next two trips downcourt. A 27-footer left Brooklyn down 53-51, and the deficit was a point going into the locker room.
Down 63-62, that’s when the Nets’ defense briefly went from sieve to stout. Briefly being the operative word.
Brooklyn harassed the Mavs into missing their first 10 shots coming out of the break. The Nets were hardly explosive themselves, but Blake Griffin found Joe Harris for a 3-pointer that made it 68-63. And after Josh Richardson finally broke Dallas’ drought, Griffin had a thunderous lefty dunk for a 70-66 edge.
The Nets were down 82-78 with Durant on the bench with three fouls. But with only Mike James back on defense, they watched the Mavs waste a four-on-one break, Finney-Smith crashing over signage and into a TV camera. Then James found Jeff Green for a 3-pointer, and sank a step-back jumper of his own to put Brooklyn ahead 83-82 after three.
Harris opened the fourth with a conventional three-point play for an 86-82 edge. And the lead was still four after a couple of Durant free throws with 9:51 to play.
But that’s when Brooklyn gave up the ghost. The 13-2 run blew it open and the Nets never got closer than 112-109 with 6.7 seconds left.
