Work of heart
NETS 119 WIZARDS 84
Maybe it was the tongue-lashing, or the brutally honest film session or the first home shootaround since Halloween. Or maybe coach Kenny Atkinson just wished to have his long-lost Nets back for Christmas.
Whatever the reason, it worked. And so did the Nets — easily handling the Wizards in a 119-84 win to snap a four-game losing streak with by far their biggest rout of the season.
“We knew we had to get a win real bad,” said Caris LeVert after the Nets rolled to their third-mostlopsided win ever at Barclays Center, in front of 15,589.
“Our mindset from the tipoff was good. I thought that first group really decided to get some stops and brought the energy and brought the defense,” Atkinson said. “Then after that, everybody got on the train, got on board and a lot of guys played well.”
The Nets were like a runaway train. They never trailed, and led by 10 at the break, by 27 after three and as many as 40 in the fourth. On offense, they attacked the rim at every opportunity. On defense, they smothered the life out of the Wizards. It was almost as if they had stored up all of their good play from that season-worst losing streak and unleashed it Friday.
“We talked about it [Friday] morning, about how important this game was for us,” Joe Harris said. “Washington is a great team, especially with John Wall back. So for us to come out and play the way we did — a full four quarters — we’re happy about it.”
Not even Scrooge could been unhappy with this one.
The Nets handed out a seasonhigh 29 assists. They outrebounded Washington by a season-best margin of 60-35. Oh, and they gave up a season-low 84 points, harassing Wizards star Bradley Beal into just four points on 2-of-15 shooting.
“It was just bad overall. It was terrible,” Beal said. “We couldn’t make shots, let alone defend anybody. It was bad. It was really, really bad.”
Or the Nets would say really, really good after putting six players in double-figures. Rondae HollisJefferson led the way with teamhighs of 21 points and 11 rebounds, as well as breakneck forays to the basket. LeVert added 17 points and six rebound, while Nik Stauskas put up 15 points on 4-of-8 shooting from deep in just 15 minutes.
“We got our butts kicked. We all did, myself included,” Wizards coach Scott Brooks said. “Give Brooklyn credit. They played a good basketball game.”
It had been a while since that happened. The Nets had been dead last in the league in field-goal defense, defensive rating and net rating during their four-game skid. In those games, they trailed the Knicks by 18, the Raptors by 37, the Pacers by 16 and finally the sad Kings by 21.
But instead of coming out languid and lackadaisical, as they had been guilty of, the Nets jumped ahead and never trailed. They ran out to a 19-9 edge and ground Washington down from there.
Drive the ball? There was Harris driving through traffic for a nasty dunk, or Hollis-Jefferson penetrating and kicking out to Tyler Zeller for a long jumper.
Hustle? How about Zeller with a follow dunk on a miss by DeMarre Carroll for a 45-36 lead with 3:33 left in the half ? Or hitting the glass for not one, not two, not three but four offensive rebounds in a row, the last one ending in Carroll’s and-one for a 67-47 cushion with 8:33 left in the third.
It added up to the Nets’ first vic- tory since beating these same Wizards on Dec. 12. They hadn’t won since, while Washington had taken three of four, coinciding with the return of Wall. But in his first backto-back since returning from a knee injury, Wall ended his night having played just 16 minutes through the third quarter. By then, the Nets led 88-61, and the lead swelled to 116-76 on Stauskas’ drive with 3:32 left.
“We were competitive. We locked in,” Hollis-Jefferson said. “It comes down to compete level.”
brian.lewis@nypost.com