The Nets were cruising toward their best win of the year. Then they got routed by arguably the best team in the league.
The Nets were on the wrong end of an eye-watering run that spanned the third and fourth quarters, and flipped what was a double-digit lead into a 129-121 loss to Oklahoma City in front of a sellout crowd of 17,926 at Barclays Center on Wednesday night.
Rolling along to a 94-81 cushion after Tosan Evbuomwan’s score, the Nets gave up an extended 36-9 run that seemed like death by a thousand cuts.
By the time it was over, the Nets trailed 117-103 with five minutes to play.
MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 27 points, six rebounds and five assists for the Thunder, who improved to 47-11.
The Nets, who led by as much as 18, fell to 21-37.
Center Day’Ron Sharpe, in his first start of the season for the suspended Nic Claxton, had a career-high 25 points, 15 rebounds and five assists, hitting his first eight shots before finishing 8-for-10 and 2-for-3 from 3-point range.
The Nets hit a season-high 23 3-pointers, but were no match for OKC.
Already without starters Cam Thomas, D’Angelo Russell and Noah Clowney, the Nets played without Claxton due to suspension for accumulating too many flagrant fouls.
Wednesday was just the fourth time in franchise history that every starter hit multiple 3-pointers.
Point guard Killian Hayes — a noted poor shooter just signed on a 10-day contract — had 19 points, seven assists and was 5-for-10 from behind the arc.
But he had the unenviable task of matching up with Gilgeous-Alexander.
Brooklyn hit six of its first 10 shots and used a 20-6 first-quarter run to take a 14-point lead.
Jalen Wilson’s floater made it 30-12 with 4:37 left in the first.
The Nets extended their lead to 76-61 at halftime — their highest-scoring half of the season — after having mustered just 99 points in an entire game two nights earlier against the league-worst Wizards.
The Nets led 94-81 with 3:32 left in the third quarter, but the Thunder kept coming.
A 13-2 OKC run that spanned the third and fourth in which they cut it to 96-95 on a Chet Holmgren 3-pointer with 11:02 to play.
Nets coach Jordi Fernández called a timeout, and settled his team.
And Tyrese Martin staunched the bleeding with a 3-pointer.
Then came the sequence of the game — or at least the one that best encapsulated it — when the Nets grabbed five offensive rebounds on the same possession.
And it was Sharpe that finished it, rebounding a miss by Cam Johnson (19 points) and scoring to make it 101-95.
But Cason Wallace (13 points) knotted it, and a goaltending put OKC ahead for their first lead of the night.
Then Wallace had back-to-back steals from Hayes and Trendon Watford, taking them in for fast break bucks and a 109-103 Thunder lead with seven minutes to play.
Holmgren’s putback made it 111-103 with 6:33 to play.
The Thunder made it 117-103 with 5:13 left on Jalen Williams’ layup.
The Nets never recovered.
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