The Nets have specialized in late collapses this season, in heartbreakers from Golden State to Cleveland. But on Sunday, they turned the tables, coming from behind with a fourth-quarter run and holding on for an 87-83 win at Barclays Center.
The victory was the third straight at home for the Nets (4-13), and showed some signs of shoring up their biggest Achilles’ heels — shutting down the pick-and-roll and closing out games.
“Complete opposite of a lot of our games,’’ said center Brook Lopez. “We definitely had to grind it out. We stuck with it though.’’
That’s what happens when you defend, as the Nets allowed their fewest points of the season.
Sure, Thaddeus Young had a team-high 19 points and 10 rebounds, while Lopez added 15 points, nine rebounds and five assists and Wayne Ellington (12 points off the bench) sparked their comeback. But it was their maligned pick-and-roll defense that made the difference.
They got a season-high six blocks from Lopez, who helped the guards deal with the Pistons’ Reggie Jackson (4 of 20 shooting) and trusted his weak-side help on Andre Drummond. It worked, with the Nets holding Detroit to 33.7 percent shooting, their best defensive performance of the season.
“We just played good defense at the end. We played hard, we played aggressive, we believed in ourselves and had a lot of confidence in the stuff we were doing,’’ Young said. “We executed down the stretch, and the defense really took over.’’
That was a switch. The Nets, for whom the fourth quarter has been a nightmare, opened Sunday’s final period with a 22-9 run to turn an eight-point deficit into a five-point lead they held onto for dear life.
“Just the fight man, resiliency. It wasn’t the prettiest, but I heard someone when I was a rookie, they told me all of them look the same in April,” Jarrett Jack said.
“It felt like running into a wall, doing the necessary things to put ourselves in position to be successful and then still coming up with the short end of the stick. At times you want to let go of the rope, as we say. But we’ve got a close-knit group in here. We challenge each other every time we step in between the lines.’’
Trailing 67-59 after three, they rose to that challenge. They opened the fourth with that 22-9 spurt, seven by Ellington.
Young knotted it at 74-74 on a driving layup, then Shane Larkin hit a left-wing 3-pointer for a 79-76 lead and set up Young for a jumper that made it 81-76.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope’s corner 3-pointer tied it at 81, and they let Drummond (20 points) beat them downcourt to untie it with 1:21 to play. But Jack’s wing jumper pulled the Nets even, Lopez’s defensive rebound on one end and free throw on the other gave them a one-point edge with 29.8 seconds left.
Brooklyn harassed Caldwell-Pope into missing a left-corner 3-pointer, and Jack’s foul shots with 14.9 seconds remaining put them up 86-83. They forced Jackson into yet another miss with just 3.2 seconds left and Young iced it at the line.
“That was a hard fought game,’’ coach Lionel Hollins said. “It’s really interesting how the league is. [Saturday] we played great and we lost. [Sunday] we were very inconsistent and we had maybe an eight- or nine-minute stretch of playing well and we come away with the win.’’
That’s what defense will do.