ROAD TO NOWHERE
Bickering Nets blasted in D.D., road mark now an NBA-worst 1-16
WASHINGTON — The Nets spent Friday bickering when they should have been playing. They spent it arguing when they should have been defending. And they spent it getting beaten as soundly as you would think, dissected 118-95 in Washington.
And the red-hot Wizards didn’t even have to pick the Nets apart; the Nets (8-24) came apart all by themselves. Against a Washington team that didn’t even have the injured Bradley Beal, they fell behind by 16 at the half, never got on the same page and sank to an NBA-worst 1-16 on the road this season.
“When you come out flat like that, that’s what’s going to happen, especially when you’re on the road. You can’t do that,’’ Sean Kilpatrick told The Post. “There was a lot of bickering back-and-forth with each other instead of playing together, and that’s not the way to be as a team.
“As a team you’re not going to win — on the road especially — if you don’t come in together and try to play together. If everything is an argument almost every play that we go down, that’s what’s going to happen. Teams are going to pick that apart. And they saw that early in the game. They saw it very early.”
The Wizards saw it. The entire 16,461 at Verizon Center could see it if they knew what to look for. The Nets’ defensive trust, which has been as up-and-down as a teenager’s moods, was at low ebb as they let Washington shoot 56.6 percent from the field. Brooklyn saw point guard John Wall kill them in the pick-and-roll with 19 points and 14 assists, while Trey Burke stepped up in Beal’s absence with a game-high 27 off the bench.
“With you arguing throughout with your team, it takes your focus off the game now, especially when you’re trying to do things defensively,’’ Kilpatrick said. “You’re not focusing, because now you’re worried about what your teammate [thinks] or how he feels about you, or what’s going on or what happened the play before. You just can’t do that.
“We didn’t play together at all. At all. It’ll continue to keep being that way if you continue to keep arguing and going back-and-forth bickering with one another.”
It started right out of the gate, falling behind 18-11. The deficit was 31-23 after the first quarter, and doubled after the second. And two plays in the third probably en- capsulated the loss. Wall crossed Isaiah Whitehead over so badly the rookie went the wrong direction around a screen by Marcin Gortat (19 points). Wall hit a jumper to make it 66-50 in the final minute of the half.
Then on the next possession, Brook Lopez (11 points, six assists, five boards) put up an airball from the corner. Bojan Bogdanovic grabbed the rebound, but got blocked by Otto Porter (12 points).
“Our energy level, it wasn’t there pretty much from the get,’’ Lopez said. “It wasn’t us.”
Coach Kenny Atkinson switched pick-and-roll coverage at the half, getting more aggressive and doubling the ball like they had earlier in the year. After allowing Wall 15 points at the break, they held him to two in the third quarter and forced seven turnovers. But Gortat shot 5-for-7 in the third with four dunks, including one on Lopez to make it 76-55.
Wall’s block on Bogdanovic and dunk on 7-footer Justin Hamilton on the other end in the fourth was the final insult.
“I’m disappointed with our performance,” Atkinson said. “Coming off two really competitive games against good teams, we should’ve come in here and played better.
“[I’m] so disappointed in our group. That’s rare I’ve been at this level of disappointment. We did not play well. I don’t think we were ready to play. I’ll take that on me. I didn’t feel that spirit.”