WASHINGTON — On the second night of a back-to-back, on the road against a playoff team, the Nets needed to get a decent start.
What they got was a start so bad that even their stirring second-half rally — and last-ditch shot that forced overtime — wasn’t enough to overcome the damage done.
After falling behind by 23 points, the Nets fought and clawed and scraped, only to run out of gas in a 119-113 overtime loss to Washington before 18,354 at Capital One Arena.
The Nets had a chance at their first season sweep of the Wizards since 2006-07, but missed their first five shots in the extra period to lose a heartbreaker.
“For some reason we started the game [and] there was no mental engagement or physical engagement. We dug a big, big hole,” coach Kenny Atkinson said. “Proud of the guys, how they competed, how they came back. It’s like a different team in the second half. But we cannot start games like that on the road. [I’m] so disappointed with how we started.”
Down 59-39 at the break, Atkinson let his team know those that won’t compete won’t play. They stormed out of the locker room with a 28-11 run to get within three, and knotted it when Caris LeVert tipped an offensive rebound out to Quincy Acy for a game-tying 3-pointer with 9.1 seconds left in regulation.
But they hit just 1-of-8 in the extra period, and fell to 16-27.
“We had a good second half, fought hard, but we can’t come out the way we did to start,” said LeVert, who had a 12 points and eight assists, but shot just 5-of-16 and had five turnovers. “We just came out sluggish, not cutting hard on offense, not fighting through screens on defense. The score got out of hand early.
“At halftime coach came in and told us it was on us. If we were going to get back in the game it was on us. Whoever’s competing is who’s going to play … We’ve got to play at that level all the time instead of picking and choosing when we’re going to play. I think that’s the next step for us.”
Bradley Beal, who scored a game-high 24 points, broke a 109-all tie with a pull-up jumper. After LeVert had his shot blocked by Markieff Morris, he then committed a turnover under the basket and Beal hit a 3–pointer to push the lead to 114-109.
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, who scored a team-high 22 points to go with seven assists, turned the ball over on the Nets’ next possession with just under three minutes left in overtime.
Jarrett Allen (16 points, eight rebounds) sank a pair of free throws to pull the Nets within three with 1:16 remaining, but the Nets got no closer. John Wall (23 points, 16 assists) hit a pull-up with 39 seconds left to essentially seal it.
“They’re scrappy. They’re scrappy. They don’t give up,” Beal said.
“They are a team that doesn’t ever quit,” added Wall. “They just play hard no matter what, down 20, up 20. They’re always going to play hard.”
Well, they did by the end. If they’d played hard from the start, they might’ve left with a win.
The Nets fell behind 20-4 right out of the gate. By the time Beal had hit a 3-pointer with 5:57 left in the first quarter, the Nets had already missed ten of their first twelve shots. His pull-up pushed it to 57-34 with under two minutes left in the half.
Trailing 102-91 with 4:15 left in regulation on Otto Porter Jr.’s pullup, the Nets closed on a 16-5 run to end regulation, including Acy’s 3 to force OT — where they lost.
“We cannot have that bad start. Other than that our competitive level to get back in, take it to overtime, all that’s good, but bad start killed us and then obviously in overtime they closed us out,” Spencer Dinwiddie said.
“Honestly we saw what we did in the first half and nobody was happy with it. Coach, players, everybody,” added Allen. “So we decided to just pick it up and start running.”