TORONTO — After poor 3-point shooting helped the Nets fall into a five-game losing streak, a hot second half behind the arc pulled them out of it.
The Nets, who entered last night’s game against the Raptors shooting just over 30 percent in their previous five games, drained 9 of 11 attempts from behind the arc in the second half to halt their skid and emerge with a 94-88 win.
“Independent of the opponent, that’s the way we can shoot,” coach Avery Johnson said. “We’ve got to be able to shoot like that, shoot like that at home, shoot like that the next game, because that’s what we’re capable of.
“Guys were getting in a rhythm. … They were taking the shots when they were available.”
During their five-game losing streak, in which the Nets have been without starting center Brook Lopez, they have been compensating for his absence by firing up almost seven more 3s per game than they were when Lopez was healthy.
But those extra several attempts from behind the arc hadn’t translated into many more points, as the Nets entered last night’s game making a little more than one extra 3-pointer a game.
It looked like those struggles would continue after a dismal shooting performance in the first half, when the Nets went 1-for-8 from deep, before finally turning things around after the break against a Raptors team that played a lot of zone.
“Any time teams play zone on you, there’s going to be open 3s, and we didn’t knock them down in the first half,” Deron Williams said. “We were able to get going in that second half, I think, because we got the ball in the middle of the floor and were able to space them out a little bit.”
* Johnson said Lopez, who missed his seventh straight game with his sprained right foot, worked out in New York as expected yesterday. Lopez was expected to get in some kind of simulated practice work today, at which point the Nets will gauge whether he will be able to return against the Pistons in Brooklyn tomorrow night or in Chicago against the Bulls on Saturday.
If not, Lopez is expected to return sometime next week.
Jerry Stackhouse was on the inactive list last night, along with Lopez, as Johnson adhered to his policy of playing the veteran swingman in only one half of back-to-back games. Stackhouse, who played 21:15 against the Knicks on Tuesday, likely will play only against either the Pistons tomorrow or in Chicago on Saturday.