The skidding Nets have lost four of their last five and fallen to sixth in the Eastern Conference. Deron Williams criticized their energy and effort on defense, and interim coach P.J. Carlesimo admitted fixing the defense and turnovers are their most important tasks — important enough he’s willing to shuffle the lineup to do it.
“We’re definitely slipping, so it’s definitely a cause for concern, and we want to work our way back toward the top,’’ Williams said.
In their five-game funk, his Nets have coughed up 94.6 points on 49.2 percent shooting, and 43.7 percent from 3-point range. The former is sixth-worst in the NBA and the latter third-worst.
With defense like that, it’s no wonder the Nets — who face the Bobcats in Charlotte tomorrow — have slid five games in the loss column behind the Atlantic-leading Knicks.
“We have to bring better effort, better energy, better defensive presence,” Williams said. “Watching film, the last couple games we definitely see a slip in our defense, and we can play a lot better. It’s on everybody. You can talk about it all you want, and we’ve done that. It’s coming out and doing it.’’
Williams wasn’t excusing himself. He holds himself accountable, especially for the Nets averaging an uncharacteristic 17.4 turnovers in their recent malaise.
“A lot of them are just me being careless with the ball,’’ Williams said. “I’m not going to blame it on anyone but myself, because I’m the one who has the ball.’’
Carlesimo acknowledged a need to correct both the defense and the turnovers. But the former he hopes to fix with some lineup changes, and the latter he hoped would be helped by Joe Johnson’s return to health.
“We need to defend better. We need to not turn the ball,’’ Carlesimo said. “But it’d be foolish to not say [that] we played three games without Joe and two games with Joe not 100 percent yet — and some of them against pretty good teams — and not think that would be a factor.’’
After missing three games with a sore left heel, Johnson has averaged 11 points in two games since and was limited in practice yesterday. Carlesimo also talked about playing centers Brook Lopez and Andray Blatche together.
“It’s something I’d like to look at more,” Carlesimo said. “It’ll probably fall on Dray at the four-spot. The four-spot is not that different than the five-spot in a lot of the things we do.’’
Blatche, a power forward in Washington, has averaged 10 points and 5.3 rebounds in just 18.9 minutes as Lopez’s backup.
“There’s going to be situations that are going to come up that put Dray in a bit of a box, because he’s not used to playing four,” Carlesimo said, “so we have to spend some time making sure he knows those [situations]. It’s something we definitely want to look into.’’
The pair of have been on the court together for just 60 minutes, according to NBA.com.
“It spreads the floor more so people have the opportunity to penetrate,’’ Blatche said. “Brook is a great player. I love playing with him. It’s tough to defend — so many weapons, so many options. And it definitely gives us length.’’
With Carlesimo talking about shortening his rotation, that could leave Kris Humphries or Reggie Evans (blocked on 22 percent of his shots) as the odd man out, especially with Carlesimo — again — vowing to find more time for Mirza Teletovic.
“I’m pretty sure I can help this team out a lot, and I’ll try to do it,” said Teletovic, who had nine points in 10 minutes against the Bulls on Saturday. “Most of the guys have played a lot this season, and as they use their energy up, sometimes they need somebody fresh to come in and have lots of energy. And I can do it.’’