NBA

Wallace rips Nets after loss to Bucks

MILWAUKEE — When the Nets dramatically overhauled their roster this summer, the plan wasn’t to put together a .500 team. But that’s exactly what they are after last night’s 108-93 loss to the Bucks dropped them to 14-14 this season.

“We’re a way better team than what our record is,” Gerald Wallace said. “I’m [bleeping ticked] off about us losing, and especially the way we’re losing.”

Wallace, now the team’s power forward after coach Avery Johnson switched to smaller starting lineup Sunday against Philadelphia, did his part to try to carry the Nets to a win, finishing with eight points, 12 rebounds, eight assists and two steals while seeing the amount of ball-handling he was doing increase, thanks to the absence of Deron Williams, who sat out with a bruised right wrist.

But it wasn’t enough to pull the Nets out of the month-long malaise, as they’ve seen all of the progress they made in their 11-4 start completely evaporate in less than a month’s time, thanks to a 3-10 mark in December.

“It’s mind-boggling that we’re in the situation we’re in,” Wallace said. “As good of a team as we are, as good as started off … you saw the potential we had as a team, and the talent we have as a team. And yet, still, instead of team, it’s more of ‘I.’ ”

The ‘I’ Wallace was referring to, he said, was his teammates getting into the mindset that rather than working together as a group.

“Confidence is our problem now,” he said. “I think that’s our main problem. Guys have got too much confidence in themselves and are not trusting in the team.

“Our main thing is we’ve got to get back to a team concept, all for one. Offensively and defensively, when we move the ball, we execute, we take care of the ball, we make the extra pass. … We’ve got to do everything as a team instead of relying on one guy to do this and one guy to do that.”

Last night’s loss played out in an all-too familiar fashion for the Nets, who have lost five of their last six games. After getting off to a decent start, this time leading 37-33 midway through the second quarter, they allowed the Bucks to reel off a 22-5 run to end the first half, sending them into halftime trailing 55-42.

“Anybody can talk, but we’ve got to go out and execute that out on the court, and right now we’re really not doing that,” Wallace said. “We play a good half or we play a great quarter, and then we go back to playing selfish ball offensively and defensively, and that’s not getting us anywhere.”

That halftime deficit turned out to be a hole that the Nets were unable to pull themselves out of. They cut the lead to four early in the fourth quarter when rookie Tyshawn Taylor hit his first NBA 3-pointer to make it 84-80, but the Bucks responded with 3-pointers from Ersan Ilyasova, Mike Dunleavy and Monta Ellis to put the game back out of reach.

“There were a few times we made runs, got it down to eight or four,” said Brook Lopez, who finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds and three blocked shots, “but then we turned the ball over or gave them an easy shot.”

That’s just one of a number of problems facing the Nets right now, a team that can’t seem to get out of its own way. They continue to commit too many turnovers, including 16 last night, and have struggled too often offensively, as evidenced by their shooting 38.6 percent from the field, including a dreadful 4-for-21 from 3-point range.

“Guys want to win, guys want to get out of this, but it’s tough,” said Jerry Stackhouse. “That’s part of being in the NBA. Things seem like they loom larger than they really are.

“It’s hard, but it’s part of what it is. We’re getting some looks, getting some shots, and the shots are not falling for us the way they were early in the season. They feel like the same shots, the same looks, but they’re just not going in.”