The nets fall to the humble Pistons in a third consecutive defeat

Once again, the Nets disrespected the game by looking past a losing foe.

And once again, they received a huge slice of pie, this time a 122-111 loss in Detroit to the worst team in basketball.

This time, the Nets spotted the Pistons from last place with a 20-point lead in the second quarter, slashed them to two in the third before surrendering in the fourth.

“My message was personal pride, connectedness and coming together. Just resistance. We can’t start the game with 10 but 20 in the second half and expect it to be easy, ”said coach Steve Nash.

“You have to want to fight with your teammates, make things extremely difficult for the other team, make them miserable. We didn’t do that. … We have a lot to clean up. The first is this attitude, this level of competition and this connectivity. These are things that you cannot write, you cannot practice. Just bring it, and I haven’t felt this for 48 minutes.

Kyrie Irving – returning from his one-game absence and playing with duct tape on his injured right index finger – finished with 27 points, but only shot 12 of 28 and 2 of 9 from deep. James Harden added 24 points and 12 assists but made seven turnovers.

The Nets (14-12) lost their worst third in a row of the season and continued to play against the competition. They are an NBA best 7-1 against teams of .500 or more, but fell to 7-11 against losing teams.

“I don’t accept that, I don’t think our team accepts it,” Irving said. “We don’t want that to be what the teams think of us. We see it day in and day out where teams come in and hit us early in the mouth, and we play catch; and it turns out it’s against the guys with the [worst] records. We have to call it that and we have to fix it. It takes maturity, responsibility and awareness of what we need to do to move forward.

“We look very average. We have the talent that the gaze tests [shows] we should dominate. … We have to turn this corner. We haven’t done it yet, but we will. And I’m telling you the league will be notified when that happens.

If we looked in the dictionary – OK, fine, Googled – for a trap game, the Pistons (6-18) would have been the definition.

But against the worst shooting team in the league, the Nets left the Pistons to a high of 55.4%. Jerami Grant had 32 points and Delon Wright added 22.

After Joe Harris opened the night with a 3, the Nets allowed a run 13-0 and fell 10 behind Grant’s dunk. They never took the lead again.

Brooklyn finished the first quarter 38-26, in appalling defensive disarray. Irving was targeted on the switches, the Nets were either beaten by dribbling or sucked in to help when their teammates did, leaving their men open to dunks and layups.

The Nets gave up an 8-0 run, falling 49-29 behind Isaiah Stewart’s 3 pointer with 9:14 left in the half. And no one was more guilty than DeAndre Jordan, repeatedly beaten. Harden had several heated first-half talks with him, as did Nash.

“Defensively, we have a few shortcomings. We have to be better. I want to say, [crap], I have to be better for us, defensively, ”Jordan admitted. “We all have to be better, but I’m just taking a little more responsibility for that end because it’s something I love and a big part of why I’m here for us. We have to be better, but I take a lot.

Jeff Green’s dunk went 63-54 at the break. With Bruce Brown replacing him to start the half, the Nets drove a 7-0 run to take him to 74-70.

The Irving 3 reduced the deficit to 79-77 with five minutes left in the third. But the Nets allowed a 7-0 run to see the lead climb back to 101-89 with 8:54 to go.

“It comes back to us and lets us know that you can’t BS the game like we did at the start,” Jordan said. “Hopefully we learn from this slippage that we are in right now and respond.”