NEW ORLEANS — After heartbreakers in Boston and Cleveland, the Nets were staring at a gut check in New Orleans.
It turned out their guts were just fine.
The Nets turned the tables from their late blown leads, coming from behind to rally for a 107-105 win over the Pelicans before a sellout crowd of 16,895 at Smoothie King Center.
Down 105-101 with 1:16 left, the Nets got a layup from Cam Johnson, a go-ahead 3-pointer from Cam Thomas and a couple of defensive stands to make that shot the game-winner.
Thomas missed one of two at the free-throw line with 14.9 seconds left in regulation to leave New Orleans a chance to tie with a deuce. Javonte Green missed from 3, then after Thomas grabbed a rebound and got tied up, ended up with a jump ball.
The ball went out of bounds, initially ruled off the Nets. But a Jordi Fernandez challenge was successful. They got it back and Dennis Schroder ran out the clock.
The Nets (5-6) lost in overtime Friday at the defending champion Celtics and then blew a fourth-quarter lead the next night at the Cavaliers, the league’s last remaining unbeaten. But they got back on track Monday.
“Obviously, [we want] a bounce back,” Fernandez said before the game. “Not that we played poorly because our effort was great, but the improvement was also we were a poor team in the third quarter and we were better than the last two games. … So that was improvement. Obviously, closing games is important in the NBA. Going back to the Boston game, offensively we struggled. We turned it over in the third. And then Cleveland was a fourth-quarter disaster.”
The Nets tied a season high with seven players scoring in double figures, led by Thomas’ 17. Ben Simmons handed out a season-high 12 assists off the bench.
After watching New Orleans star Brandon Ingram tear them up for 22 points in the first half, the Nets doubled the ball out of his hands and held him to just two in the second half. They handed the injury-riddled Pelicans (3-7) — playing without Zion Williamson and CJ McCollum — their fifth-straight loss.
Simmons helped spark a 13-4 run to close the first quarter, mostly by the second unit. He distributed six assists in the first quarter and had 10 by the break to join James Harden — the man he was traded for in 2022 — as the only Nets to ever notch double-digit assists in a half against New Orleans.
The Nets allowed 10 unanswered by the Pelicans, capped by Johnson’s pass intended for Noah Clowney getting picked off by Antonio Reeves. It snapped Johnson’s NBA-record, turnover-free streak at seven straight games and left the Nets down 32-29 with 9:37 left in the half.
Ziaire Williams’ 3-pointer snapped his string of 14 straight misses from deep stretching back to last month, and knotted it at 43-all.
It was still knotted at 73-all after a Claxton hook with 4:29 left in the third. The Nets surrendered an 8-0 run over the next two minutes, capped by Daniel Theis’ layup, to dig themselves a hole.
The Nets still trailed, 96-90, before climbing back to tie the game with an 8-2 run. Clowney hit his fifth 3-pointer — at 20 years and 120 days, the youngest Net ever to do so — and pulled them even with 5:11 left.
Ingram scored his first points of the second half to break the deadlock with 4:53 left. Thomas drilled a 3-pointer to put the Nets ahead, 101-100, but Ingram found Brandon Boston Jr. for a 3-pointer. Then Boston’s breakaway off a Williams turnover made it 105-101.
Johnson’s layup cut the deficit in half, and after Boston missed a layup, Thomas’ 3-pointer put the Nets ahead with 32.5 seconds to go in regulation.
They ensured there would be no overtime.
