NBA

Nets won’t reach .500 by All-Star weekend

The Nets ensured they would go into next weekend’s All-Star Break with a record below .500, thanks to their dismal effort in Friday’s 111-95 loss at Detroit — something that’s still hard for them to believe.

“It’s tough,” Joe Johnson said. “It’s mind-boggling, because we dug that hole in a way that we couldn’t find the rhythm, so to speak.

“I figured, I can’t speak for everybody else, but I thought we would get over .500 [by now]. But now it seems like we’ve taken back steps and man, it’s like starting over.

“It’s confusing.”

After Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov committed to spend well over $180 million in payroll and luxury tax payments to put this team on the floor, the last thing the Nets expected were to be guaranteed of being below .500 at the 50-game mark. But that’s where they will be after the defeat to the Pistons, as the Nets fell to 22-26 after 48 games.

The lackluster showing by the Nets, who play host to the Pelicans Sunday night, was the latest in a season full of low points. Though the Nets have improved in 2014, they still haven’t found an ability to play consistently at a high level.

“It’s kind of how our season has been,” Paul Pierce said. “Not only with the way it’s going up and down, but with the way our injuries [have gone], and guys we have in there night-in and night-out.

“We probably have more different starting lineups than any team in the league. It’s tough to be consistent when you don’t have a healthy team and a roster of guys, week-in and week-out to try to develop that chemistry.”

Friday’s loss also highlighted a season-long inability for the Nets to win the second game of a back-to-back set.

The loss was the ninth in 11 games for the Nets on the second half of a back-to-back, with their only two wins coming in Memphis on Nov. 30 — when the Grizzlies were missing star big men Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph — and against the hapless Magic in Brooklyn Jan. 21.

The Nets have nine more sets of back-to-backs this season, but seven of them come against teams with records below .500.