Nets’ improved defense no match for Steph Curry, Warriors as win streak ends at three

The NBA’s hottest defense was no match for history’s greatest shooter.

The Nets saw their season-best three-game win streak snapped by Steph Curry and his Warriors, beaten 120-107 before a sellout crowd of 18,163 at Barclays Center.

The Nets (10-20) had ridden length and youth to the league’s best defense over the past month, and wins in seven of their prior 10. But against seasoned playoff winners like Curry and Jimmy Butler, slick off-ball actions and more than a little foul-baiting, the Nets’ inexperience proved costly.

“This is disappointing because there’s things you can control, and it’s your energy … how you talk to teammates, and [there was] frustration at times. We dropped our shoulders too much,” Nets coach Jordi Fernández said. “We’ve just got to be better, and it reflected in our defense, with our attention to detail, our activity.

“At the end of the day, that was not a good defensive team out there. It was not a connected group, and it was not a group that built trust through communication. It was not a group that showed multiple efforts, and that’s why that was the worst defensive game in the month of December.”

The Nets had the league’s best scoring defense this month but saw their string of holding five straight foes under 108 points — second-best in the NBA this season — ended. Curry had 27 points, including a personal 10-2 run in the third that gave Golden State the lead for good.

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Jimmy Butler added 21 points, with the young Nets sending Golden State on a parade to the charity stripe, finishing 28-for-34 from the line.

“They shot way too many free throws, offensive rebounds and just too many lapses on defense,” said Nic Claxton, who had 15 points, nine rebounds, three steals and three blocks.

“It’s tough. … They do a lot of foul-baiting too. It’s hard because they’re good at drawing fouls. They’re vets. So it was just the small stuff. … We just didn’t execute enough.”

Michael Porter Jr. had 27 points, nine rebounds and five assists, hitting 5-for-9 from behind the arc. Egor Dëmin scored 23 on a career-high 7-for-14 from deep, a Nets rookie record and tied for the most by any rookie this season.

But Dëmin struggled in the fourth — 2-for-7 with two turnovers while Brooklyn was outscored 31-22 — and will chalk this up to a teaching moment.

“Every game is an experience for me,” Dëmin said. “So I’m trying to take all of them under my belt … and especially against teams like this where I can not just play against them but learn from them. Even a lost game like that can be impactful and be helpful for me in the future and for us as a team. So it’s very important.”

The Nets sit three games out of the last play-in spot. They’re sixth in the lottery standings, percentage points ahead of Charlotte but within a half-game of the Clippers.

Brooklyn led by 13 early, up 28-15 after a bucket by Claxton.

It still was 69-64 before they caught a seeming break. They’d held Curry in check to that point, just 2-for-7 from deep. Then Terance Mann fouled him on what the Warriors star thought was a 20-footer, but the play was whistled on the floor.

A fired-up Curry personally outscored Brooklyn 10-2, capping the run with a step-back 3 as he waved and barked. The Nets trailed 74-71 with 5:13 left in the third and 89-85 going into the fourth.

It swelled to 97-88. A Dëmin 3 capped a 7-1 run that closed it to three with 7:30 left, but that’s as close as they got.

The Nets saw it swell to 12 with 4:37 to play before ripping off eight unanswered to make it 107-103 on a pair of Mann free throws.

But on the next possession, Curry drew an and-one against Claxton that essentially sealed it.

“A different style of offense. We haven’t really seen it yet, a lot of off-ball movement, so we just aren’t familiar with their offense as a team,” Porter said. “We need to execute better than the fourth. I probably need to try to be a little bit more aggressive offensively in the fourth quarter, as well.”