NEW YORK _ Steal. Dunk. Steal. Dunk. Steal. Dunk.
It happened again and again and again. Rodions Kurucs, the youngest starter on the floor Monday night at Barclays center, had a dominating first half when his team needed it most, helping the Nets roll to a 103-75 win over the red-hot Detroit Pistons.
The win moves the Nets into sixth place in the Eastern Conference, giving them a half-game lead over Pistons. It also gives the Nets the tiebreaker since this is the last time the two teams play each other and they split their first two meetings in the opening weeks of the season.
Detroit entered Barclays Center having won five straight, matching their longest winning streak of the season. More impressively, they had gone 14-3 in their last 16 games since falling to 21-28 on Jan. 29.
The win was the Nets fourth straight, but their first against a playoff-contending team since they beat San Antonio on Feb. 25. It also had to be a huge confidence booster as the Nets head out on a two-week, seven-game road trip.
"This is a good challenge for us," Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said before the game. "... This tonight I think will give us some confirmation about where we are."
Where the Nets are is at a point in their maturation process where they can come up with a big win in a playoff-like atmosphere in their home building.
They did it with a defensive performance that held Blake Griffin to just 10 points on 1-for-8 shooting in the first half. They did it by holding the Pistons as a team to just eight field goals in the first half, while making 54.5 percent of their own shots. And they did it with Kurucs demoralizing steals that became dunks.
Kurucs scored all of his 13 points in the first half, making all six of his first-half shots and finishing the game shooting 6-for-8.
"We played hard, we played with energy," Kurucs said after the game.
Spencer Dinwiddie came off the bench to lead the Nets with 19 points Allen Crabbe added 14.
Jarrett Allen set a defensive tone early on Griffin, a player who caused the Nets all kinds of problems in their first two meetings. Griffin put up stat lines of 26-8-6 and 25-9-4 in the teams' first two meetings. Monday night, however, he finished with 10 points and shot 1-for-10.
The Pistons scoring woes continued throughout the game as they finished shooting 27.8 percent from the field and 23.5 percent from 3-point range. Only two players, Griffin and Andre Drummond, scored in double figures. Drummond paired 13 points with a game-high 20 rebounds.
The Nets (36-34) have exceeded everyone's expectations this season. With basically a month left to play, they are 4 { games ahead of the ninth seeded Orlando Magic.
"It means everything," Atkinson said about being in a playoff race this season after finishing with 28 wins last year. "I keep saying that we're ahead of schedule. It wasn't, if you talk about the plan and when the plan was, that wasn't in the cards to be in this battle right now.
"This group surprised me, to be honest with you. They've played above expectations. So yeah, it's a good feeling, but now it's a nervous and an anxious feeling, because now we've got this new goal, this new thing with the playoffs."
