DETROIT — The Nets are finding out the hard way the summer they had has put a target on their back, and it’s a lot easier doing the hunting than being hunted.
Scripts have flipped, and they’re watching hungry teams outhustle and outscrap them. The latest lesson came courtesy of the injury-riddled Pistons, with the Nets blowing a big lead in losing 113-109 at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday.
“I don’t know how many loose balls they got. There were a lot of 50-50 balls we didn’t get,” Kenny Atkinson said. “They were the more aggressive team. They got the loose balls, they got the scrappy balls.”
A day after Atkinson’s Nets rallied from 15 down to beat James Harden, Russell Westbrook and the Rockets, he watched them blow a 14-point cushion of their own to a shorthanded Pistons bunch.
“I told the guys we have to stretch this from 15 to 20 or you’re going to deal with something you don’t want to deal with,” Atkinson said. “We didn’t have the energy the resiliency to get it done.”
Kyrie Irving had a triple-double with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. And after watching his squad cough up an extended 39-12 run — turning a 66-52 lead in the third quarter to a 91-78 hole in the fourth — it was Irving that led the charge back.
His layup pulled the Nets within 108-107 with 17.6 seconds left, but they couldn’t get back over the hump after Luke Kennard (24 points) iced it at the line.
“It’s tough. We’re not feeling the best, everybody even us expected us to do better than now,” Jarrett Allen said. “But we also know our time is coming. We’re going to get past this.”
The Nets fell to 2-4, a disappointing start considering their huge summer adding Irving, DeAndre Jordan and the injured Kevin Durant.
“We were going to naturally come in with optimism. That’s part of being on a new team,” Irving said. “[But] the realization is … we had certain factors that played a part of us having ups and downs throughout preseason, me not foreseeing my [facial] fracture. Things come into play. It’s the rhythm of the game. That’s going to be part of it.
“That’s going to take time. When you have the expectations from the outside and you get into the realization of the season that this is a different Brooklyn Nets team than we were last year. … It’s just different because of the players we have and the talent we have. Players are going to get up to play against us.
“That’s something you’ve got to relish and be excited and know how to manage. I’m used to it, guys having unbelievable games and tail off after they play us. I’ve been on great teams like that. It just takes time to get into that frame of thinking every time you’re playing.”
Detroit didn’t have Blake Griffin, Reggie Jackson or Derrick Rose, but apparently Andre Drummond (25 points, 20 boards) and Kennard were enough.
The Nets fell behind 19-7 in the first quarter, but held the Pistons to 4-for-21 shooting in a 13-point second quarter to take an eight-point halftime lead they padded to 64-50 on a 3 by Taurean Prince (20 points).
But the Nets imploded and fell behind 91-78 in the fourth before Irving led a rally. His layup got them within one, but they took too long to chase down Kennard. He sank both at the line with 8.4 seconds left, and Spencer Dinwiddie made just one of two to leave the Nets down by a pair.
Drummond sank one of two on the other end to give Detroit a 111-108 lead with 6.7 seconds to play. And when Prince missed the second of two foul shots, and Drummond snatched yet another rebound, it was over.
“Obviously it’s frustrating. Nobody wants to lose, you don’t want to be in a position where you’re at right now, 2-4,” Joe Harris said. “But at the end of the day we still have [76] more games, you can’t overreact to the first six games.”