Five-game slide has Nets fighting to stay Out of play-in tourney

Dorian Finney-Smith said one word: “oof.”

Joe Harris took a deep breath. Mikal Bridges said he didn’t have an answer for the question.

By the 2:30 mark of the fourth quarter of Thursday’s matchup against the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Nets felt they had deserved to win.

And by the time the clock struck 0.7 — after Donovan Mitchell rebounded his own missed free throw, and the ball miraculously found Cavs’ guard Isaac Okoro wide-open for the game-winning three — the Nets officially found themselves in play-in tournament territory.

The Nets led by 10 with 6:19 to go in the fourth quarter and held an eight-point lead with just over two minutes left. They folded under a series of turnovers that gave the Cavs easy offense in transition, wiping away what the team felt was 45 minutes of good basketball.

“I felt like we deserved to win that game because we did a lot of good things throughout the course of the night. Now we have to let that game go and be able to emotionally gather ourselves and try to win a ball game in Miami,” head coach Jacque Vaughn said after the loss. “I tell them: A lot of times in defeat, you learn who the hell you are. So this is an opportunity for us to learn who we are.”

Cleveland went on a 12-2 run in the final 2:13 to hand the Nets their fifth straight loss, none more debilitating than a come-from-behind, last-second rally that stunned the Nets in the team’s toughest defeat since the trade deadline.

The Nets woke up Friday morning no longer owners of a guaranteed playoff spot. They fell below the Miami Heat to seventh in the Eastern Conference with a date against the Heat on the road on Saturday — followed by the second leg of a road back-to-back in Orlando against a Magic team that projects as a nightmare matchup with five key rotation players listed 6-10 or taller.

“I felt like we should have won this game and we were in control of the game for the majority of the 48 minutes,” said Harris, who notched his 1,000th career three with five made off the bench against the Cavs on Thursday. “You have a tough loss so everybody’s feeling that, but at the same time, we have a big game coming up against Miami and in Orlando, so the focus is now shifted to that.”

***

It was almost predictable, the way it all unfolded.

That’s because the Nets’ lead never truly felt safe. Not at double-digits midway through the final period, and certainly not as the Cavs began gaining momentum as the clock wound down.

And by the time the ball reached Okoro, with Nic Claxton’s close-out delayed by a baseline screen, the entire arena knew the Nets were going to lose.

Crunch-time offense has been the biggest area of concern for an organization that traded two of the best in the business in Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

Bridges and Spencer Dinwiddie have put on those shoes before — but it’s different when you’re the main attraction.

Dinwiddie, for example, played a near-perfect game through the first three quarters. He had extended a streak that now includes five points-assists double-doubles in his last seven games. He finished the night with 25 points and 12 assists, making nine of his 15 shots on the night, none more important than when he blew by Jarrett Allen for a high-arcing layup that put the Nets up, 114-110, with only 29 seconds left.

His three worst plays, however, came as the Cavs made their late-game run.

Dinwiddie shot a contested sidestep two over the 6-11 Evan Mobley that bounced off the rim. Claxton grabbed the offensive rebound and gave the ball to Bridges, who drove the lane then threw a bad pass that was intercepted by Caris LeVert, who scored in transition.

The following possession, Dinwiddie blew by Allen for an easy layup at the rim — but turned down the look and rifled a pass to the corner, where only a Cavs defender was waiting.

And two possessions later, when the Cavs trapped him in the backcourt, Dinwiddie launched a pass up court to Finney-Smith, whose momentum was carrying him out of bounds.

Finney-Smith threw a backwards one-handed pass to Bridges, but the ball went through his hands and ended up in Mitchell’s.

He got to the line for two free throws and made the first.

Then he missed the second, got his own rebound and got his put-back attempt blocked, a series of events that led to LeVert rifling a cross-court pass to Okoro, wideopen for the win.

“I could have not turned the ball over. I could have got offensive rebound on the free throw,” Finney-Smith said. “We played what 23 minutes good? But they executed at the end of the game.”

“When you’re getting trapped, you’re supposed to have a couple guys flash to the ball. It was a little bit delayed, so sometimes you try to throw a guy open,” Dinwiddie added. “In hindsight, I should’ve just called a timeout. I accept full responsibility for that. That’s not on Doe, that’s on me. He hadn’t been in the game, so it’s not on him.”

***

Now it’s time for a reality check: The Nets are 5-10 since the NBA All-Star break and are just 8-14 since Irving’s final game as a Net before he blindsided the organization with a trade request.

They have lost five games in a row, none more difficult to stomach than the loss they felt was a win — a defeat that sent them out of secure playoff standing and into sudden-death play-in tournament territory.

Thursday’s loss to the Cavaliers is an embodiment of why the Nets should avoid the Play-In at all costs. Bridges has the tools to be special, and Dinwiddie is enjoying one of the best stretches of his career — but neither would be considered the best player on the floor in a Play-In Tournament game.

Mitchell has been the best player in Brooklyn two games in a row.

Brooklyn’s projected play-in tournament opponents share the same luxury: If the Nets draw the Hawks, it’s Trae Young, who hit a game-winning floater after the Nets came back from down 18 to lose in Atlanta. Against the Bulls, it’s Zach

LaVine and DeMar DeRozan. Even the Raptors have an NBA champion and perennial All-Star in Pascal Siakam.

Vaughn is doing his best to prevent his team from looking that far down the road. But the end of this season could mirror the end of Thursday’s loss to the Cavaliers — promising for three quarters before it all falls apart at the end.

“It’s definitely frustrating,” said Harris. “But I think collectively across the board, we’re obviously aware of where we sit in the standings and the importance of every game here down the stretch.”

“At the end of the day, we’ve been in every game, so there’s positives to take, Dinwiddie added. “Obviously you want results. We’re trying to do this at an accelerated pace. We’re basically in training camp for this group. If you’re a seasoned team, the flash probably happens, bang, bang, everybody just breaks it: boom, boom.