Jacque Vaughn showed faith in his slumping starting lineup, resisting his stated consideration to make changes to prod the skidding Nets out of their longest losing streak of the season.
The skid now stands at five games, however, bookended by two losses to Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets over the past nine days, including Friday’s much closer and much harder-to-take 122-117 defeat at Barclays Center.
Cam Thomas scored a team-high 23 points, including a four-point play to give the Nets a chance in the closing minute, but the defending NBA champs sank seven free throws in the final 15.1 seconds.
Recently slumping Mikal Bridges was held to 14 points on 7-of-16 shooting — and he missed a potential game-tying free throw with 1:10 remaining.
Dennis Smith Jr. also returned to the rotation after sitting out seven games with a back injury, finishing with seven points and five assists in 19 minutes off the bench.
Before the game, Smith had said he believed the Nets hadn’t been “competing at a high level” and “let our fans and our coaching staff down” during the losing streak.
“Honestly, I just feel like we went out there, and we were just going through the game, almost like we were trying to get the games over with,” Smith said. “We got to come in every game and feel like we can win and understand ain’t nobody gonna give anything to us. Everything [has] to be taken.
“So we get that mentality back. I think we’ll get back on the right track.”
Jokic, the reigning league MVP, posted 31 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists, while Jamal Murray scored 32 for the Nuggets, who had blown out the Nets last Thursday in Denver to start Brooklyn’s four-game slide.
Vaughn acknowledged he had thought about altering the lineup to combat the team’s recent string of slow first-quarter starts, but he decided to stick with the same five-man unit “because I was still wanting to give this group a chance to grow together and see what we do.”
The initial results featured the Nuggets building a quick 18-7 lead, although Nets did respond with a 9-2 run to close within four points.
Smith checked in with less than four minutes remaining in the opening quarter, and he got to the line right away and sank two free throws before late 3-pointers by Finney-Smith and Royce O’Neale (13 points) helped the Nets forge a 28-28 tie through 12 minutes.
Finney-Smith drained three treys in the first half, and Smith flew through the lane for a dunk for a 37-31 lead barely two minutes into the second.
Day’Ron Sharpe converted a traditional 3-point play and Bridges knocked down a couple of shots as the Nets carried a 60-58 lead into intermission.
Bridges, who had connected on only 27.4 percent of his field-goal attempts during the losing streak, added two more buckets early in the third.
An “and-1” conversion by Jokic tied the game at 75 just before the midway mark, however, and Murray finished with 16 points in the quarter for a 88-86 Denver lead entering the final period.
The Nets grabbed a 98-96 advantage on Thomas’s three free throws with 7:32 to go.
Jokic’s lefty scoop put Denver back ahead by one, but Bridges fed Sharpe inside for a 102-101 lead before Cam Johnson (17 points) converted a three-point play for a 105-101 game with under five minutes to play.
Another inside move by Jokic put the Nuggets back on top by one with barely two minutes left. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Spencer Dinwiddie traded 3-pointers, but Murray extended the lead to three with a pull-up jumper.
Bridges then fouled on a scoring drive, but he missed from the line with a chance to tie for a one-point deficit into the final minute.
Peyton Watson dunked for a five-point lead with, before Thomas drew the Nets back within one with a 4-point play with 19.4 ticks on the clock.
But Murray, Jokic and Aaron Gordon combined to go 7-for-8 from the stripe to keep the Nets out of the win column.
