Nets fight to finish, but flame out in Phoenix

Mired in their worst slump since they opened the season with seven consecutive losses, the Brooklyn Nets refused to go down without a fight in Phoenix on Tuesday night.

They went down anyway.

Brooklyn suffered its sixth straight defeat in a 106-102 decision to the Phoenix Suns in a game that featured a late melee in front of 17,071 fans at the Mortgage Matchup Center.

“Those are just guys protecting each other and fighting for each other, and I think they did a great job,” said Nets coach Jordi Fernández moments after watching three of his players and two Suns receive technicals during the scrum.

“You know, you’re not gonna let any of your teammates get hit or pushed or anything,” he added.

Brooklyn, which fell to 2-13 this month and has dropped 14 of 16 overall dating to late December, trailed by as many as 12 points in the second half and 11 in the fourth quarter.

Spearheaded by All-Star worthy Michael Porter Jr., they refused to relent.

The Nets’ leading scorer rebounded from his lowest output of the campaign, a paltry nine points in Los Angeles on Sunday, by pouring in a season-high 36 on 15-of-24 shooting, including a 6-for-10 effort from beyond the arc.

He splashed a pair of 3-pointers during Brooklyn’s 19-5 fourth-quarter spurt, the second of which gave the Nets a 100-96 lead with 3:33 to play.

“We had the lead after being down pretty much the whole game, which is positive, positive, positive fight, positive competitiveness, but not good enough,” Fernández lamented.

Mark Williams, who scored a team-high 27 points on 13-of-15 shooting for the rugged Suns (28-19), made sure Phoenix completed a season-series sweep.

He soared in for an alley-oop dunk off a feed from Grayson Allen and drained an 11-footer to knot the contest at 100-100 with just under two minutes remaining.

Ziaire Williams answered for Brooklyn with a pair of free throws, but Allen’s five-footer tied the game again before things started to fall apart for the Nets (12-33).

A turnover by Porter resulted in two free throws for Dillon Brooks before mayhem began during a scramble for a loose ball on Brooklyn’s ensuing trip.

Brooks and Williams were engaged in a fight for control of the ball when Nets rookie Egor Dëmin shoved Brooks. 

The 19-year-old ignited a scuffle that took 10 minutes to sort out via video even after both sides had ceased fire.

Dëmin, Porter and Mann received technicals for Brooklyn while Allen and former Net Royce O’Neale suffered the same fate for the Suns, who clinched their first win in three games when Allen made a layup with 12.8 ticks showing on the clock.

Porter missed a 20-footer on the other end before Phoenix ran out the clock on Brooklyn’s bid to improve to 1-1 during this ongoing five-game road trip.

Brooks scored 26 points and Allen finished with 18 for the Suns, who topped the Nets 126-117 at Downtown’s Barclays Center on Jan. 19.

Phoenix was without All-Star guard Devin Booker and backcourt mate Jalen Green due to injury, but the rest of the Suns rose to the occasion, shooting a blistering 57% from the floor and scoring 25 points off Brooklyn turnovers.

After calling out his team, the NBA’s youngest, for being non-competitive in two of its previous three losses, Fernández readily ceded that he enjoyed watching the Nets brawl a bit in defense of one another.

Even if it didn’t get the slumping Nets back in the win column for the first time since they took the front end of a home-and-home with Chicago at Barclays the night before the Suns invaded Brooklyn.

“I think our guys fought,” Fernández noted. “This game was gonna be physical, it got really intense there towards the end.”

The Nets will visit Porter’s ex-teammates in Denver on Thursday, hoping to complete a season-series sweep of their own.

Brooklyn beat the Nuggets 127-115 at Barclays on Jan. 4 behind 27 points and 11 rebounds from the former Denver forward.

Tip-off at Ball Arena is slated for 9 p.m. ET.

NOTHING BUT NET: Dëmin scored 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting in his first action since being selected to represent Brooklyn at next month’s Rising Stars Challenge during All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles. … Williams and Cam Thomas, back from sitting out vs. the Clippers due to an ankle injury, added 11 points each for the Nets, who will visit Utah on Friday and Detroit on Sunday to round out the trip.