Forty-eight hours after the longest home winning streak in franchise history was snapped, Coach Jason Kidd’s Brooklyn Nets began a new one.

The Nets bounced back from a Friday night loss to the Atlanta Hawks that ended their franchise-best streak at 15 games with a 97-88 victory over the Orlando Magic at the Barclays Center on Sunday night.

The Nets did, however, need an extra effort to get there. A slow start to the game saw Brooklyn fall behind by eight early on and they trailed by three at the end of the first half. But the Nets rallied in the third behind the backcourt pairing of Deron Williams and Joe Johnson.

The duo helped the Nets take a 13-point lead late in the third, and the night appeared to be decided at the end of the quarter. But when Orlando cut the lead to six with 5:27 left in the game, Coach Kidd, well aware that his team couldn’t let another game get away, brought Williams, Johnson and Kevin Garnett back into the game, and the three helped close out the win.

Orlando Magic v Brooklyn Nets

The victory moved Brooklyn one step closer to locking up the No. 5 spot in the Eastern Conference, and a first round matchup with either the Toronto Raptors or the Chicago Bulls. With that in mind, and the valuable situational experience avaialble, J-Kidd didn’t hesitate to send his starters back in the game.

“I still understand that we’re playing for something,” Jason said afterward. “We’d like to get that fifth spot but we have two games left against the Knicks and Cleveland. We have to continue to get healthy and get better each time we take the floor. That’s one reason why I brought those guys back late in the fourth to give them a different situation of time and score and being able to execute and get stops.”

The Nets came into the contest fully aware of the danger presented by the youthful Magic squad, which had defeated them 115-111 just four days earlier in Orlando.

Despite that knowledge, Coach Kidd’s squad came out of the gates shaky. Brooklyn committed seven turnovers in the first quarter and allowed Orlando to shoot 60 percent from the field while building a lead as high as eight. Magic rookie Victor Oladipo led the way with eight points in the quarter, including a pair of threes.

Orlando Magic v Brooklyn Nets

But the Nets were buoyed by the first quarter effort of their own rookie, Mason Plumlee, who came off the bench to tally seven first quarter points, including Brooklyn’s last four of the quarter.

The back and forth between the two rookies provided an interesting contrast as, while Oladipo has received much attention as a Rookie of the Year candidate, Plumlee’s name has been largely absent from that conversation. After the game, Coach Kidd took the blame for his rookie’s exclusion.

“I don’t let him shoot outside the key, so I’ll take the bullet for that,” Kidd said. “I think the big thing is he understands his role and he does it well, and I think he’s gotten better since the summer.”

More important to Plumlee than competing for an individual honor is helping his team, and on Sunday, he actually helped them take the lead late in the first, for the first time since the first basket of the game.

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Plumlee dunked a Marcus Thornton feed with 1:31 to go in the first to pull the Nets within one, then got a steal and finished on the other end with a layup off another Thornton dime, to put Brooklyn in front by one with a minute left in the first. But Orlando answered with back-to-back buckets in the final minute to take a three-point lead into the second quarter.

In the second frame, the Nets settled down both offensively and defensively, and over the first six minutes of the quarter both teams led, the score was tied twice and neither was able to pull ahead by more than three.

Orlando Magic v Brooklyn NetsThe Magic finally pulled ahead by six with 3:24 left in the half on a three by Oladipo, but over the final few minutes of the half, Brooklyn showed its true grit. Johnson hit a long two pointer and drew contact on a shot attempt on the next play. He made both shots from the charity stripe, and then Brooklyn forced a turnover from the Magic on their next possession. At the other end, Kevin Garnett sank a huge jumper to tie up the score at 46-46 with 32.4 seconds remaining.

Orlando still managed to pull ahead at the half after Williams fouled Oladipo on the final Magic possession. The first year player out of Indiana made his first shot from the line and missed the second, but Orlando’s Kyle O’Quinn was able to corral the rebound and put it back in to give the Magic a 49-46 lead at the break.

The game continued to pivot back and forth early in the third. Brooklyn pulled ahead on a trey by Johnson and a trio of free throws by Paul Pierce. Orlando answered with threes from Moe Harkless and Arron Afflalo to go back up by five, but Coach Kidd’s squad never lost focus.

Williams responded with a long three of his own, and after the rookies Oladipo and Plumlee traded baskets, Mirza Teletovic delivered Brooklyn the lead for good with a dunk and a three on consecutive possessions.

From there it was the Johnson and Williams show. With just over four minutes to go in the third, Williams fed Johnson for a three to double the Nets lead. Williams then got a steal and dished to Johnson, who threw it right back, allowing D-Will to bury a transition three to make it 68-59. The lead was up to 10 with under a minute to go when Johnson again found Williams for a trey to extend Brooklyn’s lead to 13 with 34.9 ticks left in the third. At the end of the quarter, the Nets held a 79-70 advantage.

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With the lead in hand, Coach Kidd made the decision to give Williams, Johnson, and Garnett some well-earned time on the bench at the beginning of the final frame.

Jason Kidd, Deron Williams

However, when Brooklyn’s reserves let the Magic creep back into the game, Jason did not hesitate to put his stars back into the contest to secure the win. After an E’Twaun Moore dunk cut the Nets’ lead to just six points with less than five-and-a-half minutes remaining, Coach Kidd called a timeout and all three players re-entered the game.

The return of the starters created space for Teletovic, who scored seven of Brooklyn’s final 10 points of the contest.

The starters also did their job on defense by refusing to give the Magic any room to work on the offensive end over the final five minutes, a key factor in earning the 97-88 home victory. Garnett credited the defense’s ability to close out the game to the work Jason has put in to simplify the scheme.

“Things have been simplified for the best and the better and we believe in it,” Kevin Garnett said of Coach Kidd’s adjustments following a rocky start to the season. “Jason has a lot of belief in us that we will carry out the plan, and we have been doing just that.”

NEXT UP

The Nets wrap up the regular season this week with one final back-to-back.

It begins at home, where they play their final regular season game of the year at Barclays Center Tuesday night against their cross-town rival New York Knicks.

Though they beat the Nets last week to keep their slim playoff hopes alive, the Knicks were ousted from playoff contention over the weekend. Asked on Sunday about the postseason fate of his former team, Coach Kidd simply replied:

“You always have next season.”

But the Knicks also have Tuesday’s game, which could give them the season series victory over their rivals, a victory for their fans, if nothing else.

New York currently leads the season set 2-1 after handing Brooklyn a bitter 110-81 defeat at Madison Square Garden on April 2nd. All three games between the teams this year have been blowouts of that size. Previously, on Jan. 20 the Nets went into MSG and secured a 103-80 victory, and the last time the teams played at Barclays Center, back in November, New York won 113-83.

Both Deron Williams and Joe Johnson noted after the game that the Nets will have to balance their desire to beat the Knicks with the importance of getting ready for the postseason also paramount.

“It’ll still be a pretty big game,” Johnson said. “Like I said, we’re playing for something bigger than just the Knicks and the Nets. Obviously, we’re preparing ourselves for the postseason, and we’ll continue to play hard and continue to work toward that.”

“It doesn’t matter to me at this point,” Williams added. “We’re just worried about the playoffs, worried about what’s going on in this locker room and what we’re doing on the court. So as far as that’s concerned, like I said, it definitely would be good for the city to have a strong rivalry between the boroughs, but there’s still a lot of time.”

Opening tip of the fourth and final borough battle of the 2013-14 season is set for 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday night and the game will be nationally televised on TNT.

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