Nets seek back-to-back fix

BOSTON — The Nets will play their eighth back-to-back Monday, when they host the Magic. After having lost six straight games on the second night of those back-tobacks, it’s a trend they need to buck.

“Hopefully we can deal with this backto-back and be ready to go against Orlando. … Maybe it’s something we need to address,” coach Kenny Atkinson said.

“We’re all professionals,” Spencer Dinwiddie said. “We have to go in there and do our jobs. We want that win just as bad if not worse than we wanted [Sunday]. We just didn’t execute on the requisite plays. If we clean that up, we should be able to get a win.

“The mark of a good team is to consistently be able to get those wins and play the way we need to play regardless of when it is — early game, late game, backto-back, non-back-to-back, third in four days — we need to be able to get those.”

Their worst showings have come on the second night of back-to-backs, like a 120-87 loss in Toronto on Dec. 15 and last week’s 128-113 loss in New Orleans.

D’Angelo Russell’s absence has made it hard to play Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert together, but it’s sounding more and more like a foregone conclusion.

“Yeah, that’s been a good combination. You’ve got two pick-and-roll ball handlers on the floor, guys who can get to the rim downhill. We need to collapse that defense. We’ll see more of that going forward,” said Atkinson, who’ll have even more freedom to pair point guards when Russell returns. “We’ll worry about that when we get there. That’s a good problem to have, right? We’ll figure that out. … But in the back of my mind, I know what we want to do.”