Nets hold off Cavaliers

Locked in a tight game in the fourth quarter, the Nets needed answers quickly.

That meant Spencer Dinwiddie.

“He’s a speed demon. He’s a dragster out there,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said.

Dinwiddie scored 12 of his 28 points in the final quarter and the Nets zipped by the Cavaliers, 113107, on Wednesday night in Brooklyn.

Atkinson has been encouraging Dinwiddie, who recently returned after missing 14 games with torn ligaments in his right thumb, to keep pushing the pace.

“It’s hard to keep up with him and keep driving it to the rim,” Atkinson said. “So he did those things and I thought it was a game-changer for us.”

D’Angelo Russell added 25 points for the Nets, who put things together in time after some sloppy play across the middle two quarters to win their second consecutive game and keep pace with Detroit for the No. 6 playoff seed in the Eastern Conference.

This one was far more difficult than their 127-88 rout of Dallas on Monday and nowhere near as wild as their 148-139 triple-overtime victory in Cleveland on Feb. 13. But the Nets needed it however they could get it, knowing they have just two more home games this month, with a seven-game trip sandwiched in between.

“We just tried to tighten up the screws,” Dinwiddie said.

Kevin Love scored 24 points with 16 rebounds for the Cavaliers, who had won four of six since that loss to the Nets in the final game before the All-Star break. David Nwaba added a career-high 22 points.

Cleveland outscored the Nets, 65-49, in the second and third quarters and took an 85-80 lead into the fourth. But Caris LeVert scored nine points in the first 4½ minutes of the period and then Dinwiddie took over from there.