After blowing huge leads in back-to-back games against Golden State and Charlotte, when the Nets got the Lakers down on Monday, they kept them down.
The Nets put together a slump-busting 111-108 victory over the Lakers before a sellout crowd of 18,215 at Barclays Center.
The win snapped a seven-game losing skid that was the longest in the NBA and tied for the Nets’ worst of the season.
“It’s part of experience, right?” coach Jordi Fernández said beforehand. “When I was a little kid, my dad would tell me all the time, ‘Don’t do this, otherwise you’ll get hurt.’ And guess what? I did it, I got hurt, and that’s how I learned. So, it’s [part of] parenting.
“And our guys are great for the most part. They learn and they listen. And I don’t have all the answers. I’ll tell them, ‘You know, I’m wrong too.’ But … our guys care, and I know we can be a better rebounding team than we were last game. And our guys know that, so I trust them that they’re gonna come out with a better effort.”
Monday’s effort was impressive.
And the Nets (22-42) didn’t suffer in the lottery race either, staying half a game behind fifth-place Toronto, though falling even with Philadelphia in a tie for sixth.
Noah Clowney had 19 points and five rebounds off the bench in his second game back after missing six weeks with an ankle injury. Keon Johnson — who turned 23 Monday — and Cam Johnson had 18 points each.
But it was defense that won the day.
The Nets piled up a 19-4 edge in points off turnovers.
That was more than enough to survive Luka Doncic’s triple-double (22 points, 12 rebounds, and 12 assists) and Gabe Vincent’s 24 points.
The Lakers were without LeBron James and former Net Dorian Finney-Smith.
But the Nets had their own worries, playing without Cam Thomas and Trendon Watford.
the Lakers on March 10. Charles Wenzelberg
And they did it on a seven-game skid, having blown a 22-point lead against the Warriors on Thursday and a 17-point cushion at the Hornets on Saturday.
This time, though, the Nets flipped the script and dug their way out of an early 15-point hole.
The Nets allowed a 12-1 first-quarter blitz in less than two minutes.
And an extended 26-9 Lakers run — capped by Jordan Goodwin’s running 3-pointer half a minute into the second quarter — left the Nets trailing 31-15.
But they responded with a 19-7 run, Cam Johnson’s 3-pointer giving them a 48-47 lead that they took into the locker room.
Then a 9-1 Nets run — capped by a Keon Johnson 3-pointer — gave them their biggest lead of the night at 59-51 with 8:24 in the third.
Unlike their past two contests, this time there was no meltdown.
An Austin Reaves 30-footer cut it to 106-103 with 38 seconds left, but Ziaire Williams’ layup with 13.3 seconds left to play let the Nets exhale.
Doncic’s contested 31-footer got the Lakers within a deuce.
But Clowney got free for a dunk and drew the foul on Vincent, and converted the and-one.
Cam Johnson could’ve iced it at the line with two seconds left, only to miss both free throws.
But Doncic could only get off a 77-foot heave that fell short.