CLEVELAND — Once again, the Nets were terrific in the first quarter of a game. And once again, they were unable to sustain it.
After continuing their season-long trend of starting out strong and taking a lead after the opening quarter, the Nets slowly faded over the final three, allowing the Cavaliers to come away with a 95-91 victory at Quicken Loans Arena.
The Nets (10-15), who have lost three straight, came out of the locker room with guns blazing, going 14-for-21 from the field (66.7 percent) in the first quarter and 4-for-6 from 3-point range as they built a 33-26 lead.
But then, as they have so many times this season, the Nets faltered, going a dismal 7-for-22 from the field in the second as Cleveland outscored them 28-16 to go into halftime with a 54-49 lead.
Those numbers fit into a season-long trend for the Nets, who came into the game outscoring teams by 11.6 points per 100 possessions in the first quarter, the fifth-best mark in the NBA. Things have gone the opposite way in the second, however, when they had been outscored by 14.8 points per 100 possessions, the second-worst mark in the league.
Would a change in the team's rotations help?
"What good would that do?" Nets coach Lionel Hollins said before the game. "Then we'd probably be bad in the first quarter and good in the second quarter. You've got to play with what you have, and the guys that are coming off the bench have to do the job. That's the most important thing.
"Everybody wants to play, but you have to do your job. We execute and do a good job, we get off to good starts, we're in the game, and we're usually in the game for the most part in the second quarter, and then we have a lull, and then whatever lead we had was gone and then we come out in the third quarter and play really good, and we make changes and then the next thing we know the starters can't even go back in and get it done. That's been a problem all year long."
The Cavaliers finished the first half with a 14-4 run after Deron Williams exited the game with a strained right calf and didn't return. And while the Nets managed to take the lead again early in the third quarter and stayed close into the fourth, the Cavaliers simply had too much firepower to be stopped.
Even on a night when Cleveland's Big Three of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were a combined 14-for-46 — including a dreadful 1-for-10 showing from Love — the Cavaliers managed to overcome it thanks to 21 points from Mike Miller, who was making his first start of the season, and hit 7 of 8 shots from 3-point range.
The Nets had a chance to tie the game after Joe Johnson hit a 3-pointer to make it 94-91 with 41.8 seconds left. Jarrett Jack blocked Kyrie Irving's layup with 19.9 seconds remaining and the Nets recovered the loose ball. But after Hollins opted not to call a timeout, Johnson lost the ball and it wound up in the hands of Kevin Garnett for a game tying 3-point try that fell short with 2.8 seconds left, and Cleveland collected the rebound and the win.
Johnson led the Nets with 26 points, one of five players to finish in double figures. Mason Plumlee also had 14 points and nine rebounds as he remained in the starting lineup in place of Brook Lopez, who met the team in Cleveland, but missed his seventh straight game with a strained lower back.
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