CHICAGO — On paper, this was impressive.
The Nets held the streaking Bulls to just 90 points, limited them to 39.5 percent shooting.
On the court, this was dismal again.
The Nets shot just 39 percent and barely broke 80 points.
So before they moved to the New Year, the undermanned Nets gladly said goodbye to a 2010 calendar year in which they were 18-65 and then started looking to better times.
They gave a good, legitimate effort, but it wasn’t enough. For a parting kick, the Bulls, behind Carlos Boozer, yet another guy who spurned Nets’ free agent advances last summer, claimed a 90-81 victory, dealing the Nets their fourth straight defeat.
“We gave it our best effort,” said foul-troubled Devin Harris, outscored, 19-10, in his matchup with Derrick Rose as each point guard amassed nine assists.
“It’s tough,” said Brook Lopez (19 points). “That’s a really good team. We battled with them the entire game. It was a tough one not to win, but we were definitely there.”
But at the end, they were nowhere, an all too-familiar story this season for the Nets (9-24), who only dressed 10 players with Jordan Farmar (knee) and Troy Murphy (viral infection) out. They fought uphill most of the day (Chicago bolted to a 7-0 lead), but it was still very much a game when rookie Derrick Favors (six points, four rebounds) scored on a tap-in at 6:48 to get the Nets within 75-73.
You probably can guess what happened next.
“We went cold,” coach Avery Johnson said.
After Favors’ shot, the Nets missed their next four shots and went 3-of-12 to the final buzzer.
“I can’t put my finger on it,” Harris said. “We tend to lose our composure as far as running plays. The timing isn’t there. That kind of throws our plays off and forces us to be (erratic) towards the end of the shot clock.”
Boozer (20 points, 15 rebounds) scored a three-point play, and Rose hit two free throws to make it 80-73 for the Bulls, who won for the 12th time in fourteen games. The Nets never were closer than five again.
“We picked it up defensively,” Boozer said. “[Favors] got that offensive rebound and put it in so for us we picked it up the rest of the game. We executed our offense. We hit our free throws. They went to the zone and we chopped it up a little bit.”
And so another tough effort went down the drain for the Nets, who are in Minnesota tonight.
“Brave effort by our team,” said Johnson whose Nets gave up 114, 104 and 105 points in their three previous games where opponents shot a combined 52.5 percent We played much better defense.”
But it was the offense that killed them. The Nets did get a surprise 16 points from Stephen Graham and 16 from Travis Outlaw (but he shot 6-of-17).
“We know our offense has been our Achilles heel all year,” Johnson said. “We needed Devin to score for us. It would have been nice if he would have got 20-something.”
But he didn’t. Harris got the Nets within 80-75 and Graham took them to 82-77 before the roof collapsed. Kurt Thomas scored inside from Boozer, who then dunked off a feed from Kyle Korver who then took a Rose pass for a 19-footer and an 88-77 lead.
The Nets used just nine players and will be shorthanded again tonight as Farmar and Murphy will join Anthony Morrow and Damion James in the infirmary.
Farmar went for an MRI exam Thursday and sat. The plan was for Murphy to fly home early and skip the Timberwolves game.
So the Nets will be undermanned. But at least they will be out of 2010.