The Heat came into Barclays Center the NBA’s hottest team. The Nets had the league’s longest losing streak and worst record. Friday’s result was as predictable as it was painful.
For the third time in as many meetings, the Nets blew a double-digit lead and fell to Miami. This time, a third-quarter drought lost the lead and fourth-quarter funk lost the game, 108-99, in front of 15,382 fans.
“This is a marathon. Right now we’re going uphill, we’re going through a tough stretch where the mind, the body, everything is fatigued. For us you’ve just got to learn,’’ Randy Foye said. “Right now, it’s cloudy. It doesn’t look too good for us. But if we continue to work together and continue to play for each other, it’s going to turn around.”
It’s beyond cloudy. It’s pouring. The Nets, an NBA-worst 9-45, have lost 12 straight games and have not won at home since Dec. 26. After blowing an 18-point fourth-quarter lead against the Heat on Jan. 25, and squandering an 11-point second-quarter edge in Miami five days later, they wasted an 11-point third-quarter cushion on Friday.
Center Brook Lopez had 30 points and eight rebounds and he gave Brooklyn a 67-56 lead midway through the third quarter. The Nets allowed an 18-5 run to close the period, however, and went into the final quarter down 74-72. The Heat went small and forced the Nets into seven turnovers in the fourth quarter alone, scoring 12 points off of them.
With the game knotted at 83-apiece on Lopez’s hook shot with 7:38 left, Brooklyn coughed the ball up three times in a two-minute span. Those turnovers fueled an 8-1 Heat run, and the Nets never got within five after that.
“It gave us a lot of problems. Their speed, their aggressiveness, obviously we had troubling handling it on both ends,’’ coach Kenny Atkinson said. “It’s tough to sit there and run a play when they’re up in your shorts. … We did not attack their aggressiveness.”
With Lopez having his way inside, Miami fought fire with ice. They went small with backup James Johnson (26 points) at center. He fronted Lopez, and the Nets coughed the ball up trying to force entry passes.
Miami (24-30) has won 13 straight. Goran Dragic had 21 points, while Tyler Johnson — whom the Nets inked to a four-year, $50 million restricted free agent deal this summer only to see the Heat match the contract — added 18 points, six boards and four steals.
“When a team’s trying to get up into you, there’s only one thing [that helps],’’ said Foye, who had 15 points and was one of the few Nets driving against the pressure. “You can’t run plays. The only way you soften it up is being aggressive and driving the ball.”
Jeremy Lin and Quincy Acy (ankle) both missed Friday’s game.
“It’s just day by day right now. No timetable,’’ said Acy, who bought his former D-League Texas Legends teammates and staff $250 gift cards and shoes as a thank you, according to USA Today.
“When I got sent down to the D-League my rookie year, my teammates sent me with a pot,’’ Acy said. “They got together and got some money for me and told me to take my teammates to dinner, take care of my guys. … They instilled that in me early. And my mom’s got a big heart. That’s just a part of who I am.”
Tyler Johnson said if he had come to Brooklyn, the Nets might not be on a 12-game skid.
“It was a different situation. It would’ve been a different opportunity had I been over there,’’ Johnson told The Post. “I don’t look at it like that, because who knows with the NBA schedule and chemistry, it wouldn’t have been like that. It might not be 11 straight.”
A blown call cost the Nets in Wednesday’s 114-110 overtime loss to Washington.
With the score tied at 107 with 1:21 left, Bojan Bogdanovic got whistled for a shooting foul on Washington’s Otto Porter Jr., who made both free throws. But according to the NBA’s Last Two Minute Report, “Bogdanovic (BKN) makes legal contact with the ball.”