NBA

Coach Kidd to reeling Nets: ‘We’ve got to fight’

It’s amazing what playing the Bucks will do for a team’s psyche.

The Nets, desperately needing a victory after four straight losses amidst plenty of turmoil, cruised to a comfortable 104-93 triumph Friday night over the league-worst Bucks at Barclays Center.

The win, which improved the Nets to 10-19 and kept them within three games of first-place Toronto in the woeful Atlantic Division, was a welcome one following a pair of dreadful performances at home against the Pacers on Monday and the Bulls on Wednesday — after which coach Jason Kidd called out his players first publicly and then privately.

Kidd said the Nets were getting “very close to accepting losing” following Monday’s loss to the Pacers, and then chastised his team in the locker room after sleepwalking through a 95-78 loss to the Bulls in Wednesday’s Christmas Day matinee.

“[I said] that we’ve got to fight,” Kidd said following Friday’s morning shootaround, when asked what his message was after Wednesday’s defeat. “It was just a conversation in the locker room that we’ve got to compete.

“No matter if we go down eight and there’s 30 seconds on the clock or in the game, we’ve got to believe that we can still find a way to win. And right now we go down and we kind of give in to that fight, so we’ve got to continue to keep grinding, and if I have to keep rotating guys until I find the ones that are going to fight, then that’s what I have to do.”

In the wake of the week’s events, a Yahoo! Sports report Friday evening said Kidd was beginning to lose support within the locker room. Kidd dismissed that report after the game.

“I just coach and get my guys ready,” Kidd said. “I can’t answer to what you guys make up.”

One source said everyone in the organization is frustrated, given the team’s situation, and that “winning cures everything.”

For their part, the players publicly backed Kidd both before and after the win.

Deron Williams was asked Friday morning if the players were still behind Kidd.

“I think so,” Williams said. “If we were losing some close games and he was making some bad decisions, that would be one thing, but that’s not the case.

“We got blown out [Wednesday]. He can’t make us outrebound teams, he can’t make us put the extra little bit in to get over the hump. That’s on us as players to come out and play better.”

“It’s been difficult,” Kevin Garnett said, “but this is when you find out who is willing to fight, and who is willing to work. This is not easy for everybody. We’re all dealing with it in our different ways, but we’re coming together, trying to change it.”

It certainly has been a tumultuous opening two months of the season for the Nets, even beyond the disastrous 9-19 start for a team that had been tied with the Knicks for 11th place in the Eastern Conference. Last month, there was Kidd’s decision to reassign assistant coach Lawrence Frank. That came just weeks into the first year of six-year deal that was set to pay him a total of $6 million, after Kidd spent the first few days following his hiring this summer pushing Frank to join his staff.

Kidd also confirmed to The Post he has had assistant coach Charles Klask — an assistant under Frank the last two seasons in Detroit — swap roles with advance scout Jim Sann, who was an assistant with the Nets under Frank during Kidd’s playing days with the franchise.

In addition, players have repeatedly said the team lacks an identity, something that has become a bigger issue in the wake of losing center Brook Lopez for the season.

“I don’t think we kind of know or understand what kind of team we are, offensively or defensively,” Joe Johnson said after Tuesday’s practice. “It’s hurt us in a lot of ways. “

There also have been rumblings of discontent from Paul Pierce, who had come off the bench in seven of the last eight games after starting all but three games during his 15 years in Boston. That led Pierce, after struggling in both Monday and Wednesday’s losses, to say his inconsistent play has come, in part, from inconsistent minutes. Kidd responded by putting Pierce and Shaun Livingston into the starting lineup for Mirza Teletovic and Alan Anderson on Friday night.

But after getting a win against the hapless Bucks, the Nets now head out on a brutal road trip to Indianaapolis, San Antonio and Oklahoma City hoping to get things going in the right direction.

“Losing is not something that we’re getting comfortable with,” Kevin Garnett said. “[Friday] was definitely, ‘Come out here, let’s get a win and try and change this momentum around here.’ ”

For one night, at least, they did just that.