Jacque Vaughn showed faith in his slumping starting lineup, resisting his stated consideration to make changes to prod the skidding Nets out of their longest losing streak of the season.
The skid now stands at five games despite an acknowledged better effort, however, bookended by two losses to Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets over the past nine days, including Friday’s much closer and much harder-to-take 122-117 defeat at Barclays Center.
Cam Thomas scored a team-high 23 points, including a four-point play to give the Nets a chance in the closing minute, but the defending NBA champs sank seven free throws in the final 15.1 seconds.
Recently slumping Mikal Bridges was held to 14 points on 7-of-16 shooting — and he also missed a potential game-tying free throw with 1:10 remaining.
“Just got to go get the next one. You can’t put your head down and feel sorry,” Bridges said, referring to Saturday’s home game against the NBA-worst Pistons, losers of 25 in a row. “For sure, you always want to win, but mistakes and coming down to execution at the end, and missing shots and not getting stops, it was tough.”
Dorian Finney-Smith led another strong effort by Brooklyn’s bench with 14 points and four made 3-pointers, and Dennis Smith Jr. also returned to the rotation after sitting out seven games with a back injury, finishing with seven points and five assists in 19 minutes off the bench.
“I’m not too big on moral victories, but there were improvements in certain areas today,” said Cam Johnson, who contributed 17 points. “It’s just unfortunate we couldn’t pull out the win.”
Jokic, the reigning league MVP, posted 31 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists, while Jamal Murray scored 32 for the Nuggets, who had blown out the Nets last Thursday in Denver to start Brooklyn’s four-game slide.
Before the game, Smith had said he believed the Nets hadn’t been “competing at a high level” and “let our fans and our coaching staff down” during the losing streak.
Vaughn acknowledged he had thought about altering the lineup to combat the team’s recent string of slow first-quarter starts, but he decided to stick with the same five-man unit “because I was still wanting to give this group a chance to grow together and see what we do.”
The initial results featured the Nuggets building a quick 18-7 lead, although Nets did respond with a 9-2 run to close within four points.
Smith checked in with less than four minutes remaining in the opening quarter, and he got to the line right away and sank two free throws before late 3-pointers by Finney-Smith and Royce O’Neale (13 points) helped the Nets forge a 28-28 tie through 12 minutes.
Finney-Smith drained three treys in the first half, and Smith flew through the lane for a dunk for a 37-31 lead barely two minutes into the second.
Day’Ron Sharpe converted a traditional 3-point play and Bridges knocked down a couple of shots as the Nets carried a 60-58 lead into intermission.
Bridges, who had connected on only 27.4 percent of his field-goal attempts during the losing streak, added two more buckets early in the third. But Murray finished with 16 points in the quarter for a 88-86 Denver lead entering the final period.
The Nets grabbed a 98-96 advantage on Thomas’s three free throws with 7:32 to go.
Jokic’s lefty scoop put Denver back ahead by one, but Bridges fed Sharpe inside for a 102-101 lead before Johnson converted a three-point play for a 105-101 game with under five minutes to play.
Bridges was fouled on a scoring drive with 1:10 remaining, but he missed from the line with a chance to tie for a one-point deficit.
Peyton Watson dunked for a five-point lead with, before Thomas drew the Nets back within one with an electrifying 4-point play with 19.4 ticks on the clock. But Murray, Jokic and Aaron Gordon combined to go 7-for-8 from the stripe, with Murray securing the rebound of his lone miss — with neither Nic Claxton nor Sharpe on the floor — to keep the Nets out of the win column,
“We definitely are not here for moral victories,” Claxton said, “but our effort was better, our energy was better, just our overall vibe.”
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