The Brooklyn Nets have been living on the edge over the season’s first three weeks, and went down to the wire again in Tuesday night’s 119-114 loss in Utah to the Jazz.
It was the sixth of Brooklyn’s 10 games this season that was a single-possession game in the final minute.
With the Nets down 114-112, DeAndre Jordan tipped in a Kyrie Irving miss to tie the game with 1:15 to go, but Rudy Gobert’s dunk off an offensive rebound on the other end gave the Jazz a 116-114 lead with 55.6 to go and the Nets did not score again.
Irving led Brooklyn with 27 points and had five assists and Spencer Dinwiddie had 21 points with four assists.
Jordan posted his second straight double-double and third in the last four games with 15 points and 17 rebounds, making 6-of-8 shots. Taurean Prince had 15 points and six rebounds, Joe Harris scored 11, and Garrett Temple — making his first start as a Net in place of injured Caris LeVert (thumb) — had 10.
The Nets put up 68 first-half points in taking a 15-point lead at the break, shooting 59.1 percent overall and 50 percent from 3-point range.
Brooklyn’s fast start featured early back-to-back threes from Prince and Temple that put them up 10-4 before the Jazz quickly evened the game. But they gave themselves another small lead later in the first half as Dzanan Musa scored seven straight Nets points, including a finish on the break off a slick feed from Nic Claxton and a deep 3-pointer. Dinwiddie scored off a backdoor cut as Jordan got in on the big man passing as well. Jordan’s tip-in of an Irving miss put the Nets up 35-29 at the end of the first quarter.
A 7-0 Utah run tied the game at 36 early in the second quarter before a 13-3 Nets run that included seven points from Temple. Jarrett Allen pushed the Brooklyn lead to 12, but the Jazz were within seven before the Nets closed the half with an 11-3 run. Irving scored seven points in the final three minutes of the quarter to give himself 17 at the half and the Nets a 68-53 lead.
The Nets held Utah to 1-of-13 shooting from 3-point range in the first half.
The Jazz erased nearly all of Brooklyn’s halftime lead with a 13-0 run over the first four minutes of the second half. Irving’s 3-pointer halted the Utah run. Dinwiddie scored eight straight Brooklyn points to keep the Nets in the lead, and they closed the quarter with a 7-2 edge for a 92-84 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Utah opened up the fourth quarter with a 10-2 run to tie the game just over two minutes in, and went up 103-98 before two threes from Harris sandwiched one from Irving to tie the game at 107 with 5:25 remaining.