If the Nets have learned anything in the embryonic stages of this season, it’s that their games usually are not over until the final buzzer.
They forget that lesson when it mattered most last night.
Up 10 points with less than five minutes remaining, the Nets unraveled defensively, and weren’t exactly lights out offensively. As a result, they saw done to them what they did to the Bobcats last season. Charlotte, the team the Nets beat to end their 0-18 national nightmare start last season, gained its first victory in four tries, dumping the Nets, 85-83, at Prudential Center in Newark.
“We just have to learn to put teams away,” said Devin Harris, who had 19 points and eight assists despite playing the fourth quarter with a sprained left shoulder, sustained in a third-quarter collision with Stephen Jackson. “We’re up 10 and we’re making a run and we give up back-to-back three-pointers to Jackson.”
The Nets (2-2), who staged furious home-court rallies to win their first two games before running into the Miami buzzsaw and then Charlotte, went down by two before Brook Lopez tied matters at 81 with a short hook at 1:19.
Then the stream of Murphy’s Law — not Troy Murphy (18 minutes, two points), who did start and play finally — continued. If it could go wrong, it did for the Nets.
They surrendered two offensive rebounds to the Bobcats. They lost control of a jump ball. They were making a stand and then Harris was called for a blocking foul against D.J. Augustin. It looked legit, but the Nets thought it was a tough call.
“You could say that,” Harris said.
“Tough one. But it shouldn’t have come down to that. Devin was in perfect position and just got a cheap foul called on him,” said Avery Johnson.
So Augustin banged home the two free throws with 30.9 seconds left and the Nets last misadventure began. Harris missed a running jumper, and the ball went out to the Nets. Harris penetrated and found Travis Outlaw in the right corner. Outlaw dribbled, shot. Missed. Brook Lopez (17 points, six rebounds, five blocks) controlled the rebound for a tip. Missed. The ball found its way to Outlaw on the wing and he released form 16 feet. Missed. Game over.
“Devin drove and he saw me in the corner. The ball kind of fumbled a little bit, so I tried to make something and it just didn’t fall for me,” said Outlaw. “The second one just rolled to me and I looked up and saw four seconds, so I thought I had to get it up.”
The rebound of Outlaw’s second miss produced a huge scrum on the floor and saw Augustin sitting on Lopez’s shoulder. He was examined later and found to be fine. At least his shoulder was.
“I don’t think it really should have come down to that,” said Lopez, who tried to heap a lot of the blame for the loss on his shoulders. “We were playing well for a bit, and they got back in it. Think it was my responsibility. I didn’t play well in the fourth.”
The Nets, riding Harris (10 points in the fourth), were up 79-69 after an Outlaw triple at 4:48. Then the Bobcats, who got 24 points from Boris Diaw and 20 points, 11 rebounds from Gerald Wallace, used a 12-2 run, as a pair of triples by Jackson and another by Diaw were big in the comeback.
“If nothing else, twos don’t beat you in that situation,” Johnson said. “We should have done a better job of defending the 3-point line.”
And remember their own recent history.