MILWAUKEE — The Nets knew the Bucks were going to coming out swinging. It didn’t help, as Brooklyn got floored early and never recovering.
Playing a desperate team facing elimination, the Nets got off to yet another maddeningly slow start. And it cost them dearly in a 104-89 Eastern Conference semifinal Game 6 loss before a sellout crowd of 16,310 at Fiserv Forum.
Kevin Durant, who’d been superhuman in carrying the Nets to a Game 5 comeback two days earlier, was merely brilliant with 32 points and 11 rebounds. James Harden moved a little better in his second game back from a hamstring injury, with 16 points, seven assists and five boards. But it wasn’t nearly enough.
Brooklyn went big with Jeff Green at power forward and Joe Harris at off-guard, but still got battered 51-39 on the boards. And the Nets got run off the court 26-4 in fast-break points, and left in an 11-2 early hole that reached 21 and proved too much to overcome.
“We weren’t well offensively. Out of rhythm, out of sync,” coach Steve Nash said. “We definitely didn’t play the way we wanted to play, the way we planned to play, and I’d say that for the entire game.”
Like a great Brooklyn-born philosopher once said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And the Nets got clocked by a hook Mike Tyson would’ve been proud of, now forced to try to survive a Game 7 Saturday at Barclays Center (8:30 p.m., TNT).
Brooklyn stayed on-brand with its typical slow start. The Nets were 1 of 6 with four turnovers to fall behind 11-2 right out of the gate. The rest of the night was a chase, and a futile one.
The Nets clawed within four, but no closer. They closed within five in the fourth only to implode and concede a decisive 14-0 run.
“Couple shots, couple questionable calls here and there,” Harden said. “It got ugly fast.”
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This was all kinds of ugly — a team that’s been near-automatic from the charity stripe hitting just 57.2 percent. Or letting Khris Middleton go off for a game-high 38 points, with Giannis Antetokounmpo adding 30 and 17 boards.
Brooklyn fell behind 18-5 on a 3 by Jrue Holiday (21 points), and never got closer than four the rest of the night.
The Nets were within seven when Harris committed an ill-advised foul on Middleton — remember that theme — for a four-point play to make it 32-21.
Down 44-31, the Nets reeled off nine unanswered points to climb within four. It was still only 53-48 after a pair of Blake Griffin free throws, but a 9-0 Bucks run to span the half left Brooklyn down by 14.
It was 82-67 on Middleton’s free throws just 40 seconds into the fourth quarter. Brooklyn reeled off 10 unanswered points, with Harris — who had been just 4 of 23 from deep since the start of Game 3 — finally hitting a pull-up 3 to cut the deficit to five. But that’s where it all fell apart.
“They responded after every run we made, and we got to give them credit for that,” Durant said. “We were down like 15 and we got back, it was 82-77. We fouled a 3-point shooter and that’s when they took control. So I felt like we were right there; we just couldn’t get over the hump.”
Harris’ foul on Middleton gave the Bucks star three free throws. Middleton sank them all to spark a 14-0 run capped by Antetokounmpo’s put-back dunk that made it 96-77.
“There were a couple of calls obviously at pretty pivotal moments of the game. It really doesn’t do any good to argue it, disagree with it, whatever. The call was made and you’ve gotta live with it,” Harris said.
“It’s all or nothing at this point, so this is obviously the biggest game of our season at this point in time. … It’s been a dogfight this entire time and you can’t let the emotional toll of losing this game affect how we play Game 7. We’ve got to come out with confidence and just let it rip.”