Nets give away key lottery opportunity with comeback win over Wizards

In their tankathon matchup against Washington, the Nets pulled out a come-from-behind 121-115 victory before 17,257 at Barclays Center.

The Nets had a chance to pull even with the Wizards atop the all-important lottery standings. Instead, the win saw them fall into third, two full games behind the Wizards and a half-game behind Indiana pending the Pacers tilt vs. Cleveland.

The Nets (19-59) host tanking Milwaukee on Tuesday, and the Pacers on Thursday.

The Nets are two games ahead of the Jazz and Kings, pending Utah’s game against reigning champion OKC and Sacramento’s tilt vs. the Clippers.

The Nets trailed 105-101 after Jamir Watkins’ 3-pointer with 3:50 to play. But they reeled off eight unanswered points to seize the lead for good.

Point guard Nolan Traore — who has visibly hit the rookie wall — shook off his fatigue with a team-high 23 points and seven assists. His 3-pointer knotted it at 105-105 with 2:56 left, and he added another bucket to cap the run for a four-point cushion.

Traore’s 3-pointer that padded the lead to 115-108 with 1:15 remaining was just the icing on the cake.

The Wizards dropped their sixth straight to fall to 17-61, but are now 1 ½ games ahead of Indiana and two clear of the Nets in the lottery race.

The Nets started a lineup of rookies Traore, Drake Powell and the undrafted Chaney Johnson alongside Jalen Wilson and EJ Liddell.

And even that looked strong against the skeleton crew that Washington used, with just eight players active for the game.

The Nets raced out of the starting block and built a 32-15 cushion on Josh Minott’s free throw with 2:31 left in the first quarter.

His foul shot with 59.7 seconds left in the third quarter had the Nets clinging to an 84-78 edge.

But they allowed an 11-1 run to span the periods, and trailed for the first time 36 seconds into the fourth quarter, when Will Riley (game-high 30 points) found Anthony Gill in the paint to put Washington up 86-85.

And Watkins left them in an 89-85 hole a minute later, before they stormed back.

Ben Saraf, Terance Mann (right patella tendon soreness/left Achilles soreness) and Noah Clowney (left ankle soreness) were all ruled out before tipoff.

Ziaire Williams (left foot soreness), Nic Claxton (right hand soreness), Danny Wolf (left ankle sprain), Michael Porter Jr. (left hamstring strain), Day’Ron Sharpe (left thumb surgery) and Egor Dëmin (left plantar fascia) were already out.