NBA

Deron, Nets demolish Chicago in Game 1

Three years ago, Mikhail Prokhorov bought the Nets and proclaimed they one day would be a championship team.

With Prokhorov looking on from his luxury box suite high above center court, the Nets looked like one Saturday night.

In a dominating effort — one that arguably was their best performance of the season — the Nets opened their inaugural playoff campaign in Brooklyn with a 106-89 victory over the Bulls in Game 1 of their first- round series in front of a sellout crowd of 17,732 inside Barclays Center.

“Everybody was excited for this game,” said Deron Williams, who finished with 22 points and seven assists while brilliantly orchestrating the Nets’ offense. “I think it’s been a long time coming for this franchise and this organization, with the move and everything.

“We expected to be here. We came out playing like we wanted to be here. … We were locked in tonight. From shootaround we really focused on the plays and getting our schemes right, and it just carried over to tonight.”

After Jerry Stackhouse sent the fans into a frenzy with a stirring rendition of the national anthem, the Nets controlled every phase of play once the game began. They shot well from the field (56 percent) and from 3-point range (43 percent), and outrebounded the Bulls. They also committed just eight turnovers.

Brooklyn jumped on Chicago from the opening tip, racing out to a 25-14 lead and never looking back in a game they led by as many as 28, and by at least 20 for virtually the entire second half.

“It was poor defense and poor intensity, poor energy on offense,” Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. “You can’t win like that. It was from A to Z.

“Defensive transition, middle penetration, poor paint protection, poor help, poor on the ball technique and a lack of a multiple-effort mentality … you name it.”

That pretty much sums it up. But the reason the Bulls were so out of sorts was, for the most part, because of the way the Nets were playing. Williams, in particular, was outstanding, finding the matchups that most favored the Nets and exploiting them repeatedly.

Often that option was Brook Lopez, who repeatedly took advantage of the fact Chicago’s All-Star center, Joakim Noah, was limited to 14 minutes as he continues to battle a case of plantar fasciitis in his right foot. Lopez finished with 21 points in his first playoff game.

“I was excited and anxious because I’ve been waiting for this for awhile, and I was very pleased with the results,” Lopez said. “Like I said, the energy was electric and it was a lot of fun, especially with the team playing at a high level.”

Another option was Gerald Wallace, who broke out of the slump he has been in since the All-Star break. Wallace took advantage of the Bulls defending him with smaller defenders, using his size and quickness to get to the rim and either make a layup or draw a foul and get to the line. He finished the game with 14 points, getting into double figures for the first time since scoring 12 in Portland on March 27.

“I am just playing right now,” Wallace said. “This is a totally different season, so I am out here enjoying myself, just playing and trying to have fun right now. You know I am not ready to go home right now, so my main thing is to leave it all out on the court.”

Much of the rest of the time it was Williams himself attacking the defense against one of the weaker Bulls perimeter defenders, be it Kirk Hinrich, Marco Belinelli or Nate Robinson. When Williams was guarded by one of Chicago’s long, athletic wings — primarily Jimmy Butler — he gave the ball up to the open man.

But when Williams had the favorable matchup, he took advantage, slicing and dicing his way to the rim for open looks with ease, as he did when he slipped down the lane and dropped in a beautiful runner off the backboard to cap a 29-13 run to end the second quarter and send the Nets into halftime with a 60-35 lead.

He then wrapped up the game with 33 seconds to go in the third quarter when, after stealing a Luol Deng pass, he raced down court and threw down a double-pump reverse dunk that sent the crowd into a frenzy, made the score 89-62 after three quarters and made the final 12 minutes a formality.

“It just happened,” Williams said with a smile afterward. “I was just trying to show the guys in the NBA that I might be able to compete in the dunk contest next year.”

It was that kind of night for the Nets, who won their first playoff game in six years. Now they need three more of them.

tbontemps@nypost.com