CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ The Nets showed they can handle the perils of playoff pressure Saturday night at Spectrum Center. They squandered all of a 19-point third period lead and trailed by eight with just over three minutes left to play. But on his 23rd birthday, D'Angelo Russell scored the final 12 Nets points as they rallied for a heart-stopping 117-115 victory.
Russell had a chance to salt the game away but missed a deep 3 near the end of the shot clock to give the Hornets a chance with 7.0 seconds showing. Hornets All-Star Kemba Walker had one last chance with 5.0 seconds left, but when he went up for a desperation 3 just before the buzzer, Caris LeVert got a hand on the ball to tip it away as boos rained down when the referees refused to blow their whistles.
The victory put the Nets (31-30) back above .500 and kept them in sixth place in the Eastern Conference two games ahead of the Hornets (28-31). Russell finished with 40 points and seven assists, Joe Harris added 19 points in the arena where he won the All-Star 3-point contest, and Jarrett Allen totaled 11 points and 11 rebounds. Walker topped the Hornets with 32 points and Tony Parker had 21.
The Nets' lead was down to six entering the final period. When Walker buried a right-wing 3 with 8:35 left to cut the deficit to 94-92, the crowd erupted, and it was game on. The Hornets expanded their run to 19-4, including six points by Parker and five from Walker, to take a 105-98 lead on a 3-pointer by Nicolas Batum with 5:06 to play.
Back-to-back 3s by Walker gave the Hornets a 111-103 lead with 3:12 left, but that's where Russell heated up, scoring the last 12 points in a 14-4 surge to give the Nets a 117-115 lead with 39.8 seconds left to play.
When the game began, the Nets were in sixth place in the Eastern Conference just one game ahead of the seventh-place Hornets. "The beauty of this schedule right now is that all these teams we're competing against to make the playoffs we're playing head-to-head right now," Hornets coach James Borrego said. "Brooklyn is a .500 team, and we're trying to catch them. We're right on their heels, big game for us."
Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said he was looking for a bounce-back performance by his team coming off a home loss to tough Portland, but he reminded his players of how the Hornets handled them easily on the Nets' most recent visit to Charlotte.
"We know we're playing a good Charlotte team that gave us a pretty good tail-kicking here last time," Atkinson said.
The Nets got off to a hot start in the first quarter, putting together a 19-2 run to build a 30-16 lead, and that grew to 18 points early in the second quarter at 39-21. Veteran Parker, who beat up on the Nets in their previous visit, came off the bench to score nine points in an 11-1 run that cut the Hornets deficit to eight. But the Nets used hot 3-point shooting to push their lead back to 63-50 at halftime and expanded it to 19 when Treveon Graham and Harris hit consecutive 3s to open the third quarter.
The Nets did a good job holding Walker in check in the first half with four points on 2-for-9 shooting. But it didn't last. Walker had 15 points in a 17-4 run, including three straight 3s, to trim the Nets' lead to 73-67.
Shabazz Napier had the final five points in a 10-2 Nets surge to restore a 16-points cushion, but the Hornets finished the third period on a 10-0 run to cut their deficit to six and ensure a pressure-packed fourth quarter.
