Nets late rally vs. Rockets both concerning and promising for team with playoff hopes

The Nets secured a must-win victory in come-from-behind fashion Wednesday to snap a skid of six losses in seven games.

The circumstances behind their comeback, however, leaves an important question that could determine their Eastern Conference playoff odds.

Did the Nets — who have statistically struggled in the clutch ever since the trade deadline — somehow get better in crunch time overnight?

Or did they take advantage of a young, inexperienced Houston Rockets team in a victory head coach Jacque Vaughn said his team was “pretty lucky” to secure on Wednesday?

The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Brooklyn’s ability to finish the game on an 18-point swing was impressive for a team that owned the NBA’s worst crunch-time offense since trading Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns on Feb. 9.

But it’s inexcusable that a team with legitimate playoff aspirations found themselves on the brink of losing a must-win game against a Rockets team with the second-worst record in all of basketball.

“There’s no excuse for how we played the first 40 minutes of the game really,” said Cam Johnson, one of few steady forces against the Rockets with 31 points on the night. “But it’s on us to be better, and we were able to clean it up and come out of this one with the win. Coach JV said in the locker room: I’d rather learn lessons from wins than losses.”

The Nets were lifeless for the first three quarters against a Rockets team with no true veterans playing minutes on a nightly basis. Houston led by one at the half and scored 62 combined points in the second and third quarters.

This was Brooklyn’s opening demeanor in its first game back at Barclays Center after losing its sixth game in seven tries against the Orlando Magic on Sunday. With just six games left on the regular season schedule — plus the magnified gravity of each game given the playoff implications of the East’s sixth and final guaranteed playoff spot — the Nets are in no position to overlook opponents with a poor record.

“Not this time of year. Not this time of year,” Johnson said postgame. “Six games left now in the regular season. They’re all super important for us.”

And yet for the first time since the Durant and Kyrie Irving trades, the Nets appeared confident in their ability to close a game. Four of the Nets’ previous six games were crunch-time defeats, including the 14-point meltdown against the Cavaliers on March 23.

And even though the Rockets are one of the worst teams in basketball, they still played to Brooklyn’s weakness: paint scoring and rebounding. Houston won the rebound margin, 52-41, with big man Alperen Sengun dominating in Domantas Sabonis-like fashion with 21 points and 12 rebounds — eight of which came on the offensive glass.

The Rockets grabbed 20 offensive rebounds as a team to Brooklyn’s eight and scored 19 second-chance points versus just nine from the Nets.

The Nets lost the rebounding margin by six in the fourth quarter — but outscored the Rockets by 10.

“We waited a long time to really dive into how we wanted to play,” Vaughn said. “You would love to be able to do those last three minutes and play that way at the beginning of the game. We were fortunate we were only down one at the half, but I continue to learn about this group. I don’t think there was a panic from this group.”

“In crunch time, we locked in and got stops,” Mikal Bridges added.

The Nets shot 9-of-11 from downtown in the fourth quarter, tying Houston’s total score in the period from the three-point line alone. Crunch time is defined as the final five minutes of any game with a five-point margin. At the five-minute mark of the fourth quarter on Wednesday, the Nets trailed the Rockets, 104-103.

Brooklyn proceeded to oustcore Houston, 20-10, the rest of the way. The Nets ended the game on a 20-6 run and closed the Rockets out by shooting a perfect six-of-six from the field.

“We were pretty lucky to get a win tonight,” Vaughn said. “And we’re not gonna give it back.”

The Rockets, though, are hardly a measuring-stick worthy opponent.

They have scored fewer points (6.4), shot the worst field goal percentage (38.1) and have turned the ball over more (51 times) in crunch time than almost every other NBA team. The Rockets have been a disaster all season: Their meltdown against the Nets was their seventh loss in a row. They have the easiest remaining schedule in all of basketball, yet with five games left and nothing to fight for but draft positioning, no one would bat an eye if they lose the rest of the way.

The same cannot be said for the Nets’ upcoming opponents, even though based on opponent records, Brooklyn faces just seventh-easiest remaining schedule in the NBA.

The Nets play two Eastern Conference playoff opponents: the eighth-seeded Atlanta Hawks on Friday, and the championship-chasing Philadelphia 76ers in the April 9 season finale.

They also play two Western Conference playoff hopefuls: the No. 7 Utah Jazz — a team the Nets matchup poorly against given their two All-Star 7-footers Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns — and the No. 11 Utah Jazz, who are only a half-game out of the Play-In Tournament, but have the NBA’s fourth-most difficult remaining schedule.

A better example of handling business against a lowly Rockets team would have more closely resembled a wire-to-wire victory, not a game the Nets nearly ceded to a lottery-bound opponent.

Brooklyn, of course, is in no position to be picky. The Nets will take every win they can get, and it’s an added bonus if they can execute in the clutch.