TORONTO — Even when the Nets get a rare win, they don’t make it easy.
After seemingly having Tuesday night’s game against the Raptors on cruise-control, the Nets held on for a much-needed 102-100 win inside Air Canada Centre. Brooklyn had a 101-86 lead with a little over three minutes remaining, but allowed Toronto to close on a 14-2 run and have a chance to tie or win the game on the final possession.
The win for the Nets (4-10) snapped a five-game losing streak, and a run of eight losses in their previous nine games.
“We’ve just got to be more careful with the basketball,” Joe Johnson said after scoring 21 points to go along with six rebounds and four assists. “I think we kind of got out of sync a little bit offensively, to the point to where it almost seemed we didn’t know what we were running at times.
“There was a little confusion out there, and that’s on us as players, but no matter how pretty it was, we pulled it out.”
Things began to unravel when Jason Kidd decided to sub in Shaun Livingston, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett with 3:13 remaining and the Nets holding that 101-86 after a group mostly of backups had built that cushion over the rest of the fourth quarter. It was to a situation the Nets found themselves in against the Wizards in Washington a couple weeks ago, when they blew a 12-point lead in the fourth and lost in overtime.
“No, I thought I had went long with those guys again, and I was in that situation in Washington, and I wanted to be able to close the door with [the starters,],” Kidd said. “It’s something we’re going to work together at.”
After the substitutions, the Nets immediately committed a turnover, missed a shot and committed another turnover to allow the Raptors to get three quick buckets and cut the lead in half. The Nets proceeded to have two more missed shots and a shot clock violation on their next three possessions, giving Toronto the ball down four with 37 seconds left.
After Rudy Gay knocked down a 3-pointer to cut the Nets’ lead to 101-100 with 23.7 seconds to play, the Nets caught a break when Toronto tried to steal the ball for about 12 seconds — despite the shot clock already being off — before fouling with 11.2 seconds left.
After Livingston made one of two free throws, Gay drove down the lane and kicked it out to Amir Johnson in the corner for a wide open 3-pointer as the clock wound down. His shot was short, and former Knick Steve Novak’s attempted tip at the buzzer clanged off the backboard and over the front of the rim to give the Nets the win.
As Novak’s tip missed, Kidd walked onto the court and put his head in his hands, knowing he and his team escaped with one.
“It was more that I thought Amir had a great look that was really going to hurt us,” Kidd said. “I didn’t know if [Novak] had time to control the tip and put it in there, but they had a great look to win the game, but the guys fought on the road against a talented team, and got a win.”
Before the game Kidd said he wasn’t going to change up his rotation to open the game, but he wound up making a pair of changes that paid dividends. For the first time this season, Kidd opted to bring Kevin Garnett back again in the first quarter, as opposed to playing him at the start of the second, played Andray Blatche — who led the Nets with 24 points — for longer stretches and shortened his rotation to nine players, opting to play Mirza Teletovic and sit Reggie Evans.
The changes seemed to work, with the Nets finding the kind of rhythm they had lacked. The bench group helped propel the Nets on a run to start the fourth that gave them the cushion they clearly needed.
“Our bench was great,” Pierce said. “I thought Tyshawn Taylor came in and gave us great energy, just across the board.”
After finally snapping their losing streak, the Nets have a chance for their second straight win Wednesday night in Brooklyn when they face the Lakers.
“Huge, man,” Garnett said of the importance of the win. “Huge. We’ve been struggling, but I thought for the most part we talked for 48 minutes tonight, we were active, I thought we were aggressive. They had a run at the end there, but we withstood it.
“The dope part about tonight was we had carryover from practice into what we’ve been working on, so hopefully we can carry this momentum over.”