The Washington Wizards opened the second half with a third-quarter blitz that erased the Brooklyn Nets’ halftime cushion, then made the big shots and clutch plays down the stretch to hand the Nets a 118-113 loss at Barclays Center on Monday night.
After leading by 15 at halftime, the Nets were down by as many as six early in the fourth quarter before evening the game at 93 with just under eight minutes to go. It was tied five times in the next four minutes after that as the Nets and Wiz traded scores.
Finally, Trevor Booker’s rebound basket put the Nets up 106-104, the Nets’ first lead since the Wizards had raced past them in the third.
The Wizards responded with 3-pointers from Bradley Beal and John Wall, with Wall’s fast-break dunk off a turnover in between, taking a 112-106 lead. The Nets cut that deficit to three, and had a possession to tie it when Booker grabbed a defensive rebound with 19 seconds to go.
But after Booker brought the ball in to the frontcourt, Beal broke up a dribble hand-off with Joe Harris and the turnover closed out the Nets.
“I should have been a lot tighter coming off Book and coming off aggressively and know they’re going to be putting their hand in there,” said Harris.
Brook Lopez led the Nets with 25 points and added six rebounds and five assists. Sean Kilpatrick had 21 points, Bojan Bogdanovic 18 and Trevor Booker posted his eighth double-double with 14 points and a season-high tying 14 rebounds.
The Nets jumped out to a 66-51 halftime lead with a ferocious close to the second quarter. Their 15-3 run going into the break included a 13-0 burst with 3-pointers from Randy Foye and Kilpatrick.
At the point Kilpatrick’s three splashed through, the Nets were shooting 64 percent from the field (25-39) and 62 percent from 3-point range (8-13).
“I thought we were really sharing the ball,” said Harris. “We had a lot of assists. We got the ball really moving. We shot well. Then defensively I thought we did a good job too.”
The good times did not continue into the second half. The Nets shot 40 percent in the second half and committed 14 turnovers after turning it over just seven times in the first half.
The Wizards opened the third quarter on a 13-0 run, with Otto Porter’s 3-pointer cutting the Nets’ lead to 66-64.
“We were expecting it,” said Nets coach Kenny Atkinson. “They picked up their energy, their physicality. They got into us and that was the story of the game. Credit to them. They really got into us. We had a lot of live ball turnovers, and live ball lead to layups, usually.”
Bogdanovic scored twice on cuts to the basket to put the Nets up 70-64, but the Wizards kept coming, this time with a 15-4 stretch. A Beal 3-pointer made it 79-74 Washington, with the Wiz outscoring the Nets by 20 over the first seven minutes of the half.
The Nets put a break on things there, and a Harris 3-pointer tied the game at 80, setting up the tight fourth quarter.
“We fought back,” said Atkinson. “So I did like that. If we’ll take one positive, I thought we fought back. We could have folded. Turnovers like that can demoralize you, and we showed the will to keep competing. I was happy with that.”