The Nets don’t do moral victories.
But if Saturday was a measuring stick — the second night of a back-to-back, minus three starters against the league’s best team — there were positives to be taken.
Just not quite enough of them.
The Nets ran out of gas late in a 124-114 loss to Boston before a sellout crowd of 17,983 at Barclays Center, as usual with a healthy dose of Celtic green on hand.
Minus starters Ben Simmons, Nic Claxton and Cam Johnson, the Nets were down just 96-95 with 7:28 to play.
But that’s when Boston — the NBA’s championship favorite and only unbeaten team left this season — reeled off an 11-2 run to finally put Brooklyn away.
The absence of Simmons — whom the team insists was merely taking a prearranged night off to manage his well-documented back injury — was felt acutely.
With him went their prodigious fast break, and much of their offensive identity.
“I’m excited about seeing if we can continue conceptual basketball, how we want to play without [Simmons] being there,” coach Jacque Vaughn had said. “The other night we shot 45 3s, and a big part of that was Ben’s ability to, after makes and misses, push [the] tempo for us. So could our other guards do that as well will be a challenge for us.
“I’d love to shoot 45 more 3s if we could versus [the Celtics]. But I think you’ll definitely miss Ben’s ability to grab rebounds, start our break, guard multiple positions but hopefully conceptually, the way we play, someone else can slide into that slot.”
It didn’t happen.
Cam Thomas poured in a team-high 27 points, but the Nets hit just 43 percent from the floor and 17 of 52 from deep, getting bogged down in the halfcourt by Boston.
Mikal Bridges had 19 but struggled through a 7-for-20 shooting night.
The Nets had run off at least 20 fast-break points in every single game this season, their longest such streak since the stat started being tracked back in 1996-97.
They came into the night averaging a league-high 23.4 fast-break points, but mustered just seven in the loss.
The Nets trailed early, down 24-15 after Jrue Holiday found Jaylen Brown (23 points) for a midrange jumper.
But they closed the first quarter on a 19-10 run to even the score going into the second.
The Nets clawed ahead, with forward Dorian Finney-Smith — starting a fifth straight game at center for injured starter Nic Claxton — hitting a 3-pointer off a Spencer Dinwiddie feed.
It gave the Nets a 41-36 edge with 9:43 left in the half. But it was short-lived.
A 9-0 Celtics blitz over the next two minutes left the Nets in a five-point hole, capped by a floater by Jayson Tatum (game-high 32 points).
The Nets were still down just 62-58 after a putback dunk by Day’Ron Sharpe with 1:10 left in the second quarter.
But they allowed the Celtics to score the last eight points of the half, capped by a Tatum 27-footer with just 0.3 seconds left.
The Nets trailed 70-58 at the break, and never led again.
They almost immediately made a run and climbed back into the game, but could never quite get over the hump.
Thomas’ hook shot made it 87-86 with 2:25 remaining in the third, but the Nets never could pull ahead.
Down 96-90, they pulled within one again on a 3-pointer by Dennis Smith Jr.
But Tatum responded with one of his own, sparking an 11-2 run.
Boston opened the lead to double digits and the game was over.
Simmons’ absence was pronounced, but the Nets almost immediately went to reassurance mode, comforting their fans that there was nothing amiss.
“The Ben piece is just injury maintenance for us,” Vaughn said. “Overall, just assessing where we are this time of the season, with the back-to-back — not saying this will continue — but the maintenance is a part of his progression right now for this part of the season.”
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