HOUSTON — Jason Kidd went from throwing drinks on the court to throwing in the towel.
After a truly dreadful first half against the Rockets on Friday night, the Nets coach responded by sitting four of his five starters — Shaun Livingston, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce and Andray Blatche — for the entire second half during a 114-95 obliteration at Toyota Center.
“I had to go with the guys that were playing hard,” Kidd said, “and those were the guys, and they played for the whole second half.”
The Nets (4-12), losers of 10 of their last 12 games, head to Memphis on Saturday night for the final game of what has been a horrible opening month of the season.
There has been no half worse in this terrible start, however, than the opening 24 minutes Friday, when the Nets — other than Brook Lopez — looked as if they were still asleep from their Thanksgiving dinners the day before while digging themselves a 66-40 halftime deficit.
Livingston, Johnson, Pierce and Blatche were a combined 3-for-23 from the floor in the first half. All contributed to what could only be described as a lackadaisical defensive effort from the Nets, who already came into the game as the league’s worst defensive team, but seemed hell-bent on making their defensive numbers so bad, no team in the league will be able to catch them — to the point Kidd told most of his starters to take a seat.
“I announced who was starting at halftime,” Kidd said, “and I said, ‘We’ll see how it goes from there.’ ”
How it went was Tyshawn Taylor, Alan Anderson, Tornike Shengelia, Mirza Teletovic and Lopez starting the second half, and only Mason Plumlee and Reggie Evans coming off the bench at any point during the final 24 minutes.
After watching the first half, you could understand why. Despite managing to hang onto the ball, committing just six turnovers before the break, the Nets were outclassed by Houston (12-5) in every way. The Rockets shot 55 percent from the field, 61.1 percent (11-for-18) from 3-point range and 11-for-11 from the foul line in the first two quarters. Chandler Parsons — who led the Rockets with 21 points on 7-for-7 shooting from the field, including 6-for-6 from 3-point range — was the biggest beneficiary of Brooklyn’s porous perimeter defense.
“Everything,” Livingston said when asked what went wrong. “You can’t lose the hustle, the effort, all those categories. … The coaches, they gave us the game plan, and the Rockets came out and showed us what the game plan was.”
The Nets, on the other hand, shot 15-for-45 (33.3 percent) from the field, 1-for-10 (10 percent) from 3-point range and 9-for-14 (64.3 percent) from the free throw line in the first half. Pierce continued his recent struggles, going 1-for-6 from the field and finishing with two points in 15 minutes, and then skipped out on speaking after the game. Johnson went 2-for-10 and had five points.
“It’s almost to the point where it’s embarrassing,” said Taylor, who along with Shengelia played every minute of the second half, finishing with 16 points and 12 assists in 36 minutes. “You don’t want to keep losing and a lot of these games we’re not losing, we’re getting killed, you know? I think it’s a pride thing. You’ve got to just hoop, just play ball.”
The only bright spot in the Nets’ performance Friday was Lopez, who played like someone who hadn’t sat out for one game, let alone seven. He had been out since spraining his left ankle late in regulation of the Nets’ 100-98 win over the Suns in Phoenix on Nov. 15.
In typically efficient fashion, Lopez finished the game with 16 points on 5-for-9 shooting along with going 6-for-7 from the foul line, and also had a rebound and a pair of blocked shots. He also did a good job containing Dwight Howard, who finished with 12 points on 5-for-10 shooting to go along with seven rebounds in 17:27.
“I feel great,” Lopez said. “It was good to be out there. I felt great.”
He was the only player who could say that after this debacle.