Nets have to avoid infamy for 2nd straight game

The Nets avoided disaster Saturday night by not allowing the putrid Pistons to end their historic 26-game losing streak in Brooklyn.

But the Nets aren’t out of the woods quite yet. Tuesday in Detroit is the rematch.

“One, it’s right after Christmas. Sometimes those can be a little tricky,” Cam Johnson said. “Sometimes with the holidays and stuff you can let your guard down a little bit. But we just gotta remain locked in, we gotta keep the main thing the main thing, keep our focus level high and approach each game very seriously.

“We’re coming off a losing streak, so we need to turn things around and start a winning streak and just keep pushing our way through and continue to get better every day.”

On Saturday, the Nets snapped their own fivegame losing skid. But that’s nothing compared to the 2-27 Pistons, who last won on Oct. 28 against the Bulls. That victory remains their lone home win.

The Nets haven’t really talked about the historical aspect of the Pistons’ streak. Detroit has matched the 2010-11 Cavaliers and 2013-14 76ers for the longest in-season losing streaks in NBA history. The Pistons can set the mark on Tuesday, and the Nets have discussed not taking them lightly.

“They’re not a bad team. It’s just, you kind of get in that funk where you keep losing, keep losing, so you’ll play well and it’s kind of like when things get tight towards the end, it’s just tough to win a game,” Mikal Bridges insisted. “So you can’t sleep on them because they are talented as hell and they could go out there and beat you so you just gotta keep staying locked in.”

➤ Bridges snapped out of his recent shooting slump in the win over the Pistons, scoring 29 points on 9-for-17 shooting. It was the first game he shot over 50 percent from the field since Dec. 8. Nothing was different to Bridges about this game, he said, other than shots fell.

“I mean, that’s the frustrating thing. I was getting to everything I wanted to get to these past games when I was struggling and [shots] just weren’t going in,” Bridges said. “So that was always the toughest thing. I’m getting to what I like and just the ball wasn’t falling. So just staying with it. I’ve been in slumps before, so the only way to get yourself out of one is to shoot out of it. I just kept playing my game and being aggressive.”