NEW YORK — That was weird.
The Nets survived a strange and ugly fourth quarter to defeat the Utah Jazz, 111-110, Sunday at Barclays Center.
After seeing a 23-point lead shrink to just a point in the final quarter, the Nets needed some luck down the stretch to pick up the win. So, after Seth Curry missed two straight free throws with 5.1 second left, fate tilted in the Nets’ favor when Kelly Olynyk missed an off-balance 18-footer at the buzzer.
The victory was the Nets’ third straight and helped strengthen their hold on the sixth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. With four games left in the regular season, the Nets (43-35) have a two-game lead over the seventh-place Miami Heat, who did not play on Sunday.
“It was a nasty win,” Nic Claxton said. “They just got it going with the energy and started hitting shots. We got to do a better job of not fouling, but we were able to get the win.”
After dominating the first three quarters, the Nets led 93-70 with 9:51 left in the final quarter. Coach Jacque Vaughn had pulled all of his starters by then and it looked like the Nets were going to coast to a victory.
Shortly after Utah went on a 10-0 run to cut the Nets’ lead to 13, Vaughn sent all five of his starters back into the game. Vaughn said he did not think that he jumped the gun by taking his starters out of the game so early.
“Nah, the 20 minutes [they played] in the first half was hopefully to work to give us a double-digit lead, which it did,” Vaughn said.
“It worked to give us some confidence for the second half . . . I thought if the game got down to the wire that they would have some legs and some time left in them. That was the thought of kind of getting a little lead at the beginning of the game then riding that thing hopefully home.”
The Nets were able to ride it home despite getting outscored 42-26 in the final period.
For the third time in the last four games, Mikal Bridges scored 30 or more points. Bridges finished with three steals and 30 points, including a layup with 27.3 seconds left that gave the Nets a five-point lead.
Cam Johnson added 18 points and Spencer Dinwiddie had 17 points and 12 assists.
“I think in general we took our foot off the gas a little bit obviously,” Dinwiddie said. “We let them get in the bonus with nine-and-a-half minutes [left]. At that point in time you [have] a team that’s kind of young and figuring things out, but you know they can put their heads down and drive. Because worst-case scenario you get free throws.”
Utah (36-42) was missing Jordan Clarkson, their second- leading scorer. They were led by Talen Horton-Tucker’s 32 points. Lauri Markkanen, the team’s top scorer and the leading candidate for the league’s Most Improved Player Award, scored 23 but was just 1-for-8 from three-point range.
The Nets have won four of their last five but face a tough challenge Tuesday when they face the Timberwolves, who are fighting to stay in the Western Conference play-in.
“This week becomes very interesting just because Minnesota is coming in to play for a lot,” Vaughn said. “A game that’s going to take a lot for us to play well and to beat those dudes. We’re going to take that game very seriously, line up just like we did tonight — our starters almost played 20 minutes in the first half — so we’ll take that same approach. We’ll try to win a basketball game, we’ll deal with the repercussions after that. But we’re going to try to win a basketball game.”
