Carmelo delivers turn-back-the-clock effort to beat Nets

The Nets had a golden opportunity to get a big win over last season’s Western Conference finalists, to take advantage of a Rockets team playing without James Harden and mired in a four-game skid.

But it turned out be fool’s gold.

Instead, the Nets were eviscerated by Chris Paul and had their defensive flaws punished by former Knick Carmelo Anthony, who looked young again. And when it was over, the Nets had suffered a 119-111 loss and the Rockets had sauntered out of Barclays Center with a slump-busting win.

“Everybody wants to win pretty desperately and it sucks losing these type of games,” said Caris LeVert, who continued his hot start with a career-high 29 points.

But the Nets (3-6) couldn’t build on Wednesday’s comeback win over the Pistons. This time, they blew a 14-point lead. Or more accurately, they let Paul and Anthony take it.

Paul poured in game-highs of 32 points and 11 assists, adding seven rebounds for the heretofore struggling Rockets (2-5). And Anthony, now in a reserve role, had a season-high 28 points on 9-of-12 shooting, including 6-of-9 from deep.

“However way we had to get it, we had to get this win,” Anthony said. “It was big.”

Caris LeVert, who scored 29 points, goes up for a shot during the Nets' loss. — Caris LeVert, who scored 29 points, goes up for a shot during the Nets’ loss.Charles Wenzelberg

Clint Capela added 22 points and 13 rebound for the Rockets, who are expected to get Harden back Saturday versus the Bulls.

“You’ve got to be a little more perfect, a little better to beat a team that was conference finalists last year,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said. “I thought we were OK , but we weren’t [that]. You almost have to play a perfect game to beat them and we weren’t there. We were average to above-average and that isn’t good enough to beat a great team.”

The Nets had runs of 12-2 and 10-2 in the first quarter and padded their cushion to 57-43 in the second. But they couldn’t hold it.

“In the timeouts we were talking, yelling, cursing. We had to figure it out,” Anthony said. “It was just something we had to figure out and we did that. It was just one of those gritty games we had to fight it out, grind it out and we did that.”

And the Nets didn’t.

They lost their concentration and saw Paul hit a pair of 3-pointers in a 13-4 Rockets spurt to end the half. D’Angelo Russell had put the Nets ahead 61-53 with 5.2 seconds remaining, but they let Paul drill a 3-pointer with just before halftime.

It wasn’t even their worst late-second gaffe. Clinging to a 69-64 edge after a Jared Dudley 3-pointer, the Nets coughed up an 11-0 run, with three of the points by Anthony. His bucket left them in a 76-69 hole that they never climbed out of.

“We never really stopped the bleeding. They made shots, we made shots. They made 3s, we made 2s, so it was tough to put a hand on that,” said Russell didn’t play a second in the fourth quarter.

“It’s hard to tell. I’ll look at the game film, see what I can do early in the game to dictate if I’m playing in the end. But we have a lot of guys who are capable of doing a lot of things. So whatever Kenny says goes.”

With Nets trailing 79-71, Shabazz Napier hit three 3-pointers in a 15-9 run that got them to 88-86 with 5.5 seconds left in the third. But they fell asleep again, ceding the middle of the court and not picking up Paul up before he got to the arc, giving up a 3 at the buzzer.

The Nets did claw within one at 103-102 on a LeVert 3 with just under seven minutes left. But they had eight straight empty possessions, including three turnovers, to let the game slip away.

“That’s very frustrating,” Spencer Dinwiddie said. “As a unit we have to do better about that.”

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