Cleveland is the best team in the NBA. Brooklyn came up one endgame run short of being the best team on the floor.
The Nets, who have turned blowing late leads into an art, did it again Tuesday night. They threw away a fourth-quarter cushion and fell 109-104 to the Cavaliers before a sellout crowd of 19,432 in Cleveland.
Brooklyn led by 18 points in the third quarter and eight early in the fourth. But they allowed a 23-8 Cleveland run to lose the lead and eventually the game.
IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
The Nets (22-43) moved into a tie with idle Toronto for fifth place in the lottery standings and are a half-game ahead of the seventh-place 76ers.
- CHECK OUT THE LATEST NBA STANDINGS AND NETS STATS
Cleveland (55-10) won its franchise record 15th straight game and secured the Central Division title, under former Nets coach Kenny Atkinson.
Cam Thomas led the Nets with 27 points, and Cam Johnson — visibly upset after this latest collapse — added 17 and five rebounds. But the Nets, playing without D’Angelo Russell, went 2-for-9 over the last few minutes.
The Cavaliers didn’t have star guard Donovan Mitchell, but they still had a Big 3 of Evan Mobley (21 points), Darius Garland (game-high 30 points) and ex-Net Jarrett Allen (23 points, 13 boards). That trio proved too much for Brooklyn to handle.
Brooklyn, which blew a 22-point lead against Golden State and a 17-point cushion in Charlotte in the past week, had this one in hand for most of the night. They led 71-53 after reeling off eight unanswered points, capped by Ziaire Williams’ 3-pointer with 9:23 left in the third. But that’s when the endgame frailties resurfaced.
With a vengeance.
Their offense, which was like clockwork in the first half, went ice-cold. Brooklyn allowed a 19-8 Cavaliers run, their cushion cut to 79-71 on Sam Merreill’s free throw with 1:49 remaining in the third.The Nets lead was down toand the cushion was a mere eight points entering the fourth. And Brooklyn conceded a 23-8 run over the next 6:46.
Things only got worse from there.
Thomas seemed to stanch the bleeding on his and-one with just 2.3 seconds left in the period to leave Brooklyn up 86-75. But the Nets were too lax and let Craig Porter Jr. hit a running 49-footer that replay showed just beat the buzzer.
Allen’s layup knotted it at 94-all against his old team, then Mobley found Garland for a layup that put Cleveland ahead 98-94 with 5:14 to play. Brooklyn trailed by a basket or two for the rest of the evening but never got over the hump.
Atkinson won a pair of key challenges down the stretch, one on an out-of-bounds call that had initially been ruled Nets ball and another to send Garland to the free-throw line up by four with 33.8 seconds to play. It helped the Cavs close out his old team.
