Relax, Nets fans. The latest glorious winning streak may have died at one, but the Nets still can finish at .500.
Yup, the Nets, now 4-41 after blowing an early 12-point lead, turning belly up offensively down the stretch and falling to the emotionally wrecked Wizards 81-79 on an Earl Boykins jumper with .4 seconds left, need only to run the table in their final 37 games and — Voila! — .500 is theirs.
A team going 37-0 is almost as tough to fathom as a team going 4-41. Almost.
The Nets will look back and kick themselves for this one, along with about 30 other games. They started so strong, finished so weak.
“We got stagnant,” admitted Courtney Lee, who scored 14 of his 19 points in the first quarter. “We needed to get a little bit more movement in the offensive end. We were running plays and going to guys, but the other four of us were standing around.”
After Lee exploded from the right corner for a dunk at 5:59 for a 75-74 lead, the Nets, again without Devin Harris (wrist) missed six shots, tossed in two turnovers and two free throw misses by Brook Lopez (17 points). They went 5:46 with a basket.
“I can’t believe I missed those,” Lopez said of his flubs at 3:41. “It came back to bite us. You can’t give away easy ones like that.”
And you can’t rebound the way the Nets did — they were beaten on the glass 40-32, yielding 15 offensive rebounds, five by Mike Miller (12 overall).
Lopez atoned with a spinning post-up score with 13 seconds left to tie it at 79. The Wizards (15-30), without a single starter scoring double-figures for the first time in franchise history, did not take full advantage of the Nets’ futility. Clash of the Titans this was not, though the Nets were solid defensively all night.
Until the final significant shot. With Antawn Jamison screening, the Wizards ran a high pick and roll, the Nets switched and Kris Humphries wound up on Boykins, who the Nets wanted to send left. He went right. Humphries gave too much space, and Boykins, the ex-Net, drained a 16-footer. With .4 seconds left, the Nets got off a Jarvis Hayes no-chance-in-Hades heave.
“The last thing I wanted to do was foul, get caught in the air and foul,” Humphries said. “I probably should have pushed up a little bit more . . . make him turn the corner and finish.”
The 5-foot-5 Boykins said the Wizards were waiting.
“They switched the last possession and we were prepared for it,” he said.
It was the first game for the Wizards (15-30) since Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton were suspended for the rest of the season by the NBA for bringing guns into the locker room.
“If you hang around the NBA long enough,” Nets interim coach Kiki Vandeweghe said, “you see a lot of things.”
Except two-game winning streaks by the 2009-10 Nets. So they suffered another gut punch.
“I’ve got a new thing — instant amnesia. Instant,” Chris Douglas-Roberts said.
Harris shot in warmups, but sat a third straight game with a sore right wrist. Vandeweghe wants his point guard fully healed before returning.
“He wants to come back and play,” Vandeweghe said. “If you’re not really healthy and your wrist is bothering you, you’re better off getting it to 100 percent before you come back.”
⇒Design a play, work for the Nets. Sort of. ESPN.com has film of a fan who designed an inbounds play for the Nets — one that Kiki Vandeweghe used in the Jan. 13 game against Boston. Like just about everything else for the Nets this season, it didn’t work.