NBA

Nets wilt down stretch vs. Celtics

BOSTON — The Nets started terribly. They ended even worse.

What was more upsetting, start or finish?

“Take your pick,” Devin Harris said, and sighed.

So a game that exhibited struggle, rally and collapse truly centered on the collapse. The Nets, after taking a one-point lead with 6:18 left, missed their last 12 shots and also committed three turnovers to end the All-Star break with a forgettable 94-80 defeat to the Celtics and 31-point scorer Paul Pierce last night.

“Just a championship team that took advantage of our mistakes,” said coach Avery Johnson, whose gang closed out the pre-All-Star break campaign at 17-40. “We got off to a horrendous start.”

And you already heard about that spiffy finish.

“We just have to execute better down the stretch, obviously,” said Anthony Morrow (14 points). “It’s been a problem all year.”

All in all, the Nets starting in holes of 8-0, 10-1 and 25-10 — all of the starters were on the bench by 8:20 of the first quarter — turned out to be mild compared to the 16-0 run that turned into the 17-2 close delivered by the Celtics (40-14).

After the bench pulled the Nets’ butts out of the fire the starters helped create, the first unit, behind Brook Lopez (18 points) and Harris (16 points) awoke and helped build what became a nine-point third quarter lead. The Celtics counter-rallied. That’s what they do. But the Nets led, 78-77, when Lopez scored 6:18 from the end.

“We’re up . . . in the fourth,” Johnson said, “and Ray Allen (12 points), the last person we want shooting a 3 in the gym, and he makes a 3 on us.”

The start of the end. The Nets offense disappeared. Completely. Almost as completely as it did at the start.