Nets come up short against Kings as Brooklyn opens 4-game homestand

BROOKLYN — The Nets led for most of the first half, until they didn’t, and Brooklyn was never able to get that lead back in what turned into a 101-96 loss to the red-hot Sacramento Kings. It was a game of runs where Sacramento made the Nets pay and helped keep the pesky Brooklyn squad on Thursday night at Barclays Center

The Nets pulled within mere points of the Kings several times in the second half, but were unable to complete the comeback. The Nets had won five of their past seven games, but have now dropped back-to-back games.

“Just similar to how we’ve been in the past where we put ourselves in a hole and we’re trying to fight back,” Nic Claxton said about what happened on Thursday. “And we might get it to like six points and they hit a timely three, push it back to nine. We’ve been in that situation quite a few times in our last few losses. And even in some of our wins where we’re just fighting back and I’ve kind of sounded like a broken record, but we can’t put ourselves in a hole like that.”

The Kings held the Nets without a single second chance or fast break point the entire 48-minute contest, which ESPN’s Tim Bontemps reported was the first time any team has done that since 2015.

The Nets finished as a team shooting 41.2% from the field and 35.9% from three-point range.

Kings star Domantas Sabonis had 24 points — a game-high — and pulled down 21 boards.

Things slipped away from Brooklyn in the final five minutes of the opening half after Domantas Sabonis hit a pair of free throws to give the Kings a 39-38 lead with 4:31 left in the second quarter. Sacramento went on a 15-2 run to close out the half and put the Nets back on their heels.

“They just played harder and getting stops and they were just scoring. Getting to the line, but yeah, they just played harder than us,” MikalBridges said.

Sacrament continued to pile on to start the second half with a quick 6-2 run to extend their advantage over the Nets to 17. However, the Kings struggled to get their shots to fall during extended segments of the third, during which they ended up shooting 9-for-19 from the field, and kept the Nets in the game

Brooklyn was able to cut the 17-point Kings’ lead down to six with 4:11 left in the third off a Yuta Watanabe dunk. Royce O’Neale got it back down to six with a three with 1:38 left in the third.

Still, the Nets couldn’t get the needed stops late in the third as Sacrament opened a double-digit lead back up against Brooklyn, which only put up three points in the final 1:38 of the period. The Nets came close to catching the Kings on several occasions during the fourth, including after a jumper from Claxton with 9:09 left cut it to eight and Seth Curry knocked down a jumper of his own with 7:27 to cut it to six.

Bridges pulled the Nets within five twice late in the game, first with a wild fadeaway jumper that dropped and drew a foul with 4:24 left. Moments later he drew another foul and hit both shots from the charity stripe.

Brooklyn had entered the night a game back of the New York Knicks for fifth in the Eastern Conference and had a two-game lead over the Miami Heat. Both of those teams were not in action on Thursday night.

The Loss to the Kings opened up a four-game homestand for the Nets and are down to their final 12 games of the regular season.

Bridges finished the night with 23 points on 7-of-17 shooting along with four rebounds and two assists. Spencer Dinwiddie had 18 points and a game-high seven rebounds.

Claxton had 14 points and 14 rebounds, while Curry had 14 off the bench and hit 3-of-5 three he took.

Former Net Kessler Edwards had 10 points for the Kings in 24 minutes of time on the court. Edwards was traded to the Kings in February around the NBA trade deadline.

“Proud of him and like I told him when he left us, I’ll always be pulling for him,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said about Edwards. “Incredible human being and good to see him have success. He’s a guy that worked on his game. Unfortunately, it didn’t work9 out for us. And Mike’s a hell of a coach for him to learn, to use him. He’s knocking down shots, defensively he’s playing well. Pulling for him.”