Thomas, who has been relegated to coming off the bench this week despite entering the game as the Nets’ leading scorer, led a season-low 35.7 shooting effort.

The former Louisiana State standout and Southeastern Conference scoring champion certainly wasn’t the only culprit in Brooklyn’s putrid showing.

Reserve forward Royce O’Neale and starting point guard Spencer Dinwiddie combined to go 0-for-12 for Brooklyn, which fell behind 9-0 in the game’s opening stages and never truly competed thereafter.

“We put him in some bad positions, grenade after grenade, late shot clock after late shot clock,” Nets forward Cameron Johnson said in defense of Thomas. “I’m not going to put anything on him. We put him in bad positions.

“It’s a collective thing. His 0 for 11 should go to the team in a sense, where he just had the ball with three seconds left (on he shot clock) and had to force up a shot,” Johnson added. “It’s tough to re-establish a rhythm when you have so many of those.”

Johnson finished with a team-high 17 points, Mikal Bridges added 13, and Day’Ron Sharpe had 12 and nine rebounds for the Nets, who had their lowest-scoring game of the campaign.

CJ McCollum had 16 points, and Herb Jones scored 14 for the Pelicans, who led by as many as 32 before cruising to their third straight win and eighth in 11 games.

“I’m definitely seeing us coming out and having more of a sense of urgency across the board,” New Orleans coach Willie Green said. “Tonight was another step in the right direction.”

Nets coach Jacque Vaughn couldn’t say the same.

He watched helplessly as Brooklyn dipped a season-worst four-game below .500 and didn’t pull any punches when asked about his team’s effort.

“It really is like a boxing match: When you get hit, how are you going to respond?” Vaughn pondered. “We can’t think that making shots is the response.

“If you’re really desperate about winning, then you’ll dive on the floor, and you’ll do it all, and you’ll get cuts and bruises, and you’ll go home sore,” he added. “We’re not there yet. It’s just as simple as that.”

The Nets could go home even sorer if they don’t find a way to salvage the finale of this disastrous four-game road trip, which concludes Wednesday night in Houston (16-15).

Johnson called the second half of Brooklyn’s back-to-back against the Rockets a “gut check.”

“Sometimes you just got to make things happen instead of kind of just playing along and hoping,” he told the Associated Press.

NOTHING BUT NET: Dorian Finney-Smith was also part of the Nets’ shooting woes, going 1-for-6 from the field. Johnson and Sharpe were on target for most of the game, hitting 12-of-21 attempts, including Johnson’s 5-of-9 effort from 3-point range. … The Nets have won their last three meetings with the Rockets, including a 118-96 triumph in Houston on March 7 of last season. … Brooklyn has yielded at least 112 points in each of its last 13 games dating to a 124-97 win over Washington at Downtown’s Barclays Center on Dec. 8. … After visiting the Rockets, the Nets will kick off a four-game homestand vs. Oklahoma City on Friday night.