Just three nights earlier in Downtown Brooklyn, Nets forward Cam Johnson expressed his sympathy for the Detroit Pistons’ ongoing futility.
Apparently, he didn’t feel bad enough to let them win their first game in two months Tuesday night in Motor City.
Johnson scored a team-high 24 points and Mikal Bridges added 21 as Brooklyn handed the Pistons their record-setting 27th consecutive loss by holding on for a 118-112 victory in front of 19,811 fans at Little Caesars Arena.
After Brooklyn (15-15) breezed past Detroit (2-28), 126-115, Saturday at Barclays Center, Johnson, who played for Pistons coach Monty Williams in Phoenix, encouraged his opponents to keep a stiff upper lip following their 26th straight defeat.
“I told them, some of the young guys on (their) team after the game, that sometimes you got to lose before you can win,” Johnson revealed.
He nearly ate his own words.
After knocking down a free throw with 2:36 remaining in regulation to give the Nets a 109-103 lead, Johnson watched Cade Cunningham make three straight driving layups around his own 3-pointer to cut the deficit to two with 57.2 ticks left.
Johnson answered by feeding Dorian Finney-Smith for a 22-footer that gave Brooklyn a 115-110 cushion with 38 seconds to go.
“We had a little bit of execution and composure down the stretch,” Johnson said after finishing 9-of-13 from the field, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range. “It didn’t always go our way, but we were able to pull it out.”
By doing so, the Nets won their second straight following a season-high five-game slide and put the Pistons atop the list for the most consecutive losses in a single season in NBA history.
Only the 2011-12 Cleveland Cavaliers and 2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers had lost as many as 26 straight games in a single campaign.
Now, Detroit will head to Boston Thursday night trying to avoid the…
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