SALT LAKE CITY — This Western road swing is mercifully over for the Nets.
They’re coming back to Brooklyn battered and bruised.
And thoroughly beaten.
The Nets suffered a 125-108 defeat to the Jazz before a sellout crowd of 18,206 at Delta Center.
They lost the game, and lost Cam Johnson to injury, knocked out of the game in the fourth quarter.
“I think [the goal is] to figure out how to get a win and a win on the road in a place that has a, you know, hostile environment, fans are into the game so you’ll feel that soon as the game begins,” coach Jacque Vaughn had said beforehand. “So for us to finish the trip, but majority of this is getting a win.”
It didn’t happen.
With the disappointing defeat, the Nets fell to 13-13, and just 1-4 on this road trip.
After Mikal Bridges had said beforehand they just didn’t want to come back home under .500, they barely avoided doing just that, their victory over old friend Kevin Durant and the Suns their only win on the trek.
Even more discouraging, not only did the Nets get beaten by the underdog Jazz (10-17), but they got beaten up.
Brooklyn got hammered on the glass, outrebounded 51 to 36.
They shot just 5 of 12 in the restricted area, blocked five times by Utah center Walker Kessler alone.
And they saw the Jazz score at will at the rim, a staggering 19 of 22.
Cam Thomas poured in a game-high 32 points, the sixth time he’s cracked 30 in his past 17 games.
But Spencer Dinwiddie was the next highest-scorer with 17 and 11 assists.
It was nowhere near enough, with Bridges held to just 13 on 4-for-16 shooting.
Collin Sexton and Talen Horton-Tucker had 27 each for Utah, while Lauri Markkanen added 20.
Right from the start, Utah’s size flummoxed the Nets.
Brooklyn got blocked three times and missed eight of its first nine shots in the paint, falling behind 20-16 with 2:50 left in the first quarter.
The game was knotted 52-all on Sexton’s free throw, before the Nets gave themselves a little breathing room.
Seven unanswered points, capped by a Nic Claxton tip-in, made it 59-52 with 38.2 seconds remaining in the half.
The Nets tried to cling to the lead, before the Jazz finally pulled even.
Horton-Tucker drilled a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 68-66, then found Kessler for a layup on the next possession to tie it.
The Nets were clinging to a 78-77 edge when they gave up an 11-0 run, the lead and any semblance of momentum.
Sexton — who had been going back-and-forth with Bridges — drilled a 3-pointer to put Utah ahead 80-78.
John Collins and Markkanen hit consecutive 3s to make it 86-80, and a Brooklyn turnover led to Ochai Agbaji’s fast-break dunk to cap the spurt.
Thomas earned his way to the line and sank two to break the drought with 22.5 seconds left in the third.
But after cutting it to 92-87 early in the fourth with Bridges going to the line, he missed the free throw and Dinwiddie committed a turnover. It sparked a 9-2 Jazz run that put the game away, Collins’ 3-pointer padding the Utah cushion to 101-89.
The deficit grew from there.
Johnson was forced out of the game with 7:24 left.
He attempted to tap the ball out to a teammate and took an elbow to the face, going facedown on the court.
He was looked at by Nets staff before eventually getting up and walking off under his own power. He is in concussion protocol