The Nets started playing against the Bucks at about 8 p.m. yesterday.
The only problem? The game started at 6.
A furious second-half rally that fell short only masked the issues that plagued the Nets throughout much of last night’s 97-88 loss to the Bucks in front of a crowd of 16,390 at Barclays Center.
“A loss is a loss, no matter how many you lose by,” said Joe Johnson, who struggled with six points on 2-of-8 shooting. “Great effort in the second half, but we still lost.”
Sitting in his luxury box high above center court, Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov undoubtedly liked little of what he saw from the roster he poured more than $330 million into this summer in preparation for the team’s move to Brooklyn.
He saw his All-Star backcourt of Johnson and Deron Williams get thoroughly outplayed, his team miss countless shots — particularly in the first half — and saw the Nets (11-8) suffer a fourth straight loss heading into tomorrow night’s rematch with the Knicks.
The sleepwalk commenced after the Nets raced out to an 11-2 lead in the first few minutes.
“We came out in the first couple minutes and looked really good, really sharp and executed well,” said Deron Williams, who finished the game with 18 points and eight assists. “But something happened where we couldn’t find it … we couldn’t find it.”
That’s one way to put it. The Nets did practically nothing right for the rest of a dreadful first half. They shot 13-for-47 (27.7 percent) from the field, including missing several wide-open shots.
Williams and Johnson went a combined 3-for-17, including 0-for-6 from 3-point range. Meanwhile they couldn’t stay in front of Milwaukee’s backcourt of Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis, who combined for 50 points and went 14-for-15 from the foul line.
Johnson, in particular, struggled throughout the game, and coach Avery Johnson sat the shooting guard for the final nine minutes of the third quarter. After the game, the coach indicated he needs to see more from Johnson offensively.
“I just think a lot of our guys that we depend upon scoring, they’re going to have to pick it up,” Avery Johnson said. “It’s just that simple.”
Meanwhile, the Nets — particularly in the first half — were intimidated by the length of the Bucks inside, which caused them to pass up shots after driving into the lane, instead opting to kick out for jumpers that didn’t fall.
“We got our shots blocked a couple of times, and then you start hesitating, faking yourself close,” Williams said. “We were open on a lot of shots and pump-faking for no reason and driving into the defense instead of just knocking down shots.”
It was more of the same for the Nets to start the third quarter, which the Bucks began with a 17-8 run, capped by an Ellis jump shot off an assist from Jennings to take a commanding 68-39 lead at the 6:59 mark.
Even after the disaster that was the first 2 1/2 quarters, the Nets threatened to get into the game. But after going on a 16-2 run to cut the lead to 70-55 with 1:32 left in the third quarter, the Bucks responded with a 12-1 run over the next three minutes to put the game back out of reach.
The Nets made another run late in the fourth, cutting the lead to six with about three minutes remaining on a dunk by Kris Humphries before eventually falling short.
“You want to protect home court, and tonight we didn’t play like a team that had lost three in a row,” Williams said. “We’ve got our backs against the wall right now, and we’ve got to fight our way out of it.”