Nets still struggling with allowing late leads to slip through their fingers

The Nets are a young team that has learned how to compete.But they still don’t know how to win.That’s going to be a tough lesson.Nobody has blown more fourth-quarter leads than the Nets, their 18 such collapses coming into Saturday’s rematch in Indiana — a 108-103 loss notable for a late Nets rally that fell short — tied for the league high, or more accurately, the league worst.It was a rematch because they fell 105-99 in overtime on Thursday in a game that they appeared to have in the bag.That is, until they got rattled, lost their composure, and lost a lead they’d held almost all evening.“I think we made it happen, honestly,” admitted D’Angelo Russell, who missed Saturday’s rematch with right ankle soreness.“[We had] a lot of things going our way except for shots falling.

But for us as a group, I think we had everything that we needed to get that win.”The Nets led by as many as 11, and were ahead 84-77 after Russell’s layup with 4:55 to play when the wheels came off.After a bucket by Indiana’s Bennedict Mathurin, Trendon Watford got into it with Andrew Nembhard and Myles Turner, drawing two technicals and an ejection.It proved costly, but figuratively and financially.Watford got fined $35,000 by the NBA on Friday night.

But the Nets had already paid for his ill-advised shoves, clearly thrown off their game down the stretch in Thursday’s defeat.“That’s just the level of intensity that you’ve got to rise to,” Russell said, “It’s not the playoffs, but it’s a playoff environment.We’re a young group trying to get there, so as a group to be able to handle our emotions throughout those moments, don’t let them get the best of us at any point in the last five minutes of the game.”But that’s exactly what happened, the young Nets losing their poise.

And they lost Watford, who’d been arguably their most effective player.He got tossed with 15 points, four rebounds and a team-high plus-8.“Yeah, I don’t know what they...