It's hard enough to beat any team twice in a row — let alone a team as good as the Wizards.
The Nets, who had blown out Washington on the road in the first half of a back-to-back set between the two teams, found that out the hard way Saturday night. Brooklyn kept it close, but couldn't quite muster enough offense to come away with a second win in a row, losing 99-90 in front of a sellout crowd of 17,732 at Barclays Center.
The loss for the Nets (17-24), combined with wins by the Pistons and Hornets, allowed both Detroit and Charlotte to move within a game of Brooklyn for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Nets begin a three-game Western Conference trip Wednesday in Sacramento.
Saturday's game was far more competitive than the previous game, but Brook Lopez did manage to pick up right where he left off. After spending 20 minutes or so sitting courtside with general manager Billy King following two days worth of trade rumors, Lopez followed up his 25-point second half in Washington with a 13-point first half that helped the Nets take a 51-50 lead into the break.
The Nets increased that lead to 63-56, but it then appeared the Wizards were about to put the game away when they went on an 18-2 run that was capped by a Rasual Butler jumper. That gave Washington a 74-65 lead with a minute to go in the third quarter.
But the Nets managed to make things interesting in the fourth, tying the game at 81 on a pair of Jarrett Jack free throws with 8:28 remaining. The Wizards immediately responded with a Kevin Seraphin jumper at the other end to retake the lead. After Butler drove to the rim and made an acrobatic layup following a missed 3-pointer by Mirza Teletovic to give Washington a four-point lead, the Nets never were able to tie the game again.
Washington's frontline of Nene and Marcin Gortat, who had been abused by the Nets Friday, both bounced back in this one. Nene led the Wizards with 20 points and Gortat had 10 to go with a game-high 16 rebounds as Washington outrebounded Brooklyn 49-40.
Paul Pierce, in his return to Brooklyn, had just seven points and four turnovers in 26 minutes.
Jack led the Nets with 22 points and eight assists while Joe Johnson and Lopez each added 15.
Kevin Garnett was back in the Nets' starting lineup for a second straight game, marking just the third time in 10 back-to-backs this season he had played both ends.
Part of the reason Garnett was available likely had to do with the combination of his playing fewer than five minutes in Monday's loss to the Rockets before being ejected for headbutting Dwight Howard (which led to him being suspended for Wednesday's loss to Memphis), and then having three days off before the Nets' game against the Kings.
Garnett finished with eight points and 10 rebounds in 27 minutes.
Bloomberg News reported Saturday that billionaire Steve Cohen won't be bidding for the Nets after his representatives met with Evercore Partners, the investment bankers retained by Mikhail Prokhorov to explore selling the team. Cohen, a hedge fund magnate, is a minority owner of the Mets.
After buying the Nets for roughly $220 million in cash in 2010, if Prokhorov chooses to sell both his 80 percent stake in the team and 45 percent stake in Barclays Center, he should get several times that much from a prospective buyer.
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