WASHINGTON _ Winter has come early for the Nets, who have succumbed to long downward spirals midway through each of the past two rebuilding seasons under general manager Sean Marks and coach Kenny Atkinson. That's where they find themselves again in season three of the rebuild.
In this particular case, bad things came in sixes for the Nets. They lost their sixth straight game, 102-88, to the Wizards Saturday night at Capital One Center, and it marked their sixth loss in as many attempts on the end of a back-to-back set.
Overall, the Nets (8-16) are in a tailspin in which they have lost 10 of 12 games. They barely mustered any offense against the Wizards, shooting 37.0 overall and 24.2 from three-point range. Allen Crabbe was high scorer for the Nets with a mere 14 points. Guards Spencer Dinwiddie, D'Angelo Russell and Shabazz Napier each were held to eight points and shot a combined 8-for-30.
By contrast, the Wizards (9-14) shot 51.9 percent from the field and got 30 points and nine assists from John Wall, 22 points from Bradley Beal, and 20 points from Markieff Morris, who netted 15 in the final period.
Asked immediately after the game what he saw that triggered his fourth-quarter explosion, Morris said, "They were playing small ball _ too small _ and we took advantage."
The Nets cut a 15-point Wizards lead to eight, but Morris scored nine points in a 12-0 run to push it to 93-73 before the start of garbage time.
Both teams were playing the second game of a back-to-back set, but the Nets were mired in a five-game losing streak that included three straight games in which they blew double-digit leads in the second half. Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said he tried to deliver a positive message to his young team about learning the hard way.
"Playing a very good Memphis team (Friday) with two of their top players playing like All-Stars and we're in a double-overtime fight with them and have multiple opportunities to win, that means our guys are playing well," Atkinson said. "We have to keep accumulating the experience with our young players and be able to limit our mistakes.
"I think these are learning experiences. It's a tough way to learn, but I think it's the best way to learn because we will look at this and get better from it."
The Nets were fortunate in one respect that Wizards center Dwight Howard, who has dominated them the past three seasons, is sidelined for two or three months after undergoing hip surgery. He was replaced in the starting lineup by Thomas Bryant, who was scoreless in the first half, but the Wizards still controlled points in the paint, 24-16, on their way to a 42-39 halftime lead.
The Nets trailed by as much as 12 points while shooting only 33.3 percent from the field in the opening half, but they hit three three-pointers in a 13-4 run to close the opening half and cut their deficit to three.
The notion that they might have generated some momentum evaporated as soon as the teams returned from intermission. The Wizards opened with an 11-0 run to take their largest lead at 53-39 as the Nets missed three shots and committed two turnovers on their first five possessions of the third quarter.
The Nets responded with a 13-4 run that included six points from Jarrett Allen to cut the deficit to six points, but that's as close as they got in the period. The Wizards then put together an extended run of 19-8 spanning the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarters to push their lead to 77-62 with 9:56 left. The question facing the Nets at that point was whether they could find a spark and turn the tables to overcome a double-digit deficit.
