There are no words to describe it. There is no stench to match it. There is no punishment to forgive it. To say the Nets were lifeless last night would be an insult to corpses the world over.

In a season when the Nets often have measured their lows on a daily basis, they achieved a new bottom, which considering some of the clunkers they’ve forged in this masochist’s delight, says a lot. The final score of 84-71 is in no way indicative of how gosh-awful lousy the Nets were against the Pistons in the boo-filled Meadowlands last night.

It was so bad, Stephon Marbury took off his jersey at game’s end. He later swore it was not symbolic of anything. But, hey, no one wanted to be identified with the Nets in this one. Not the Yankees. Not the city of Newark. Not the needy kids in the state.

“It was an ugly game. I never seen anything like that,” offered Jayson Williams, who grabbed 17 rebounds but chided himself for not carrying the team early. “This team follows my example. I can’t let a team come out, get 30 points like that. I wasn’t as aggressive as I should’ve been.”

The Nets, who trailed by as many as 26, managed all of 23 field goals, tying their all-time low. The 71 points, in addition to being a season low, was also the fourth lowest total in team history.

The 29 points scored before halftime established a new low on the season for a half. The nine points that failed to rock the Pistons (15-12) in the second quarter set an all-time Net sludge level for second quarters. Need more? In one stretch – almost unimaginably of 11:45 – bridging the second and third quarters, the Nets failed to register a single, lousy basket.

“We regressed a little,” said interim Don Casey, who praised the aggressive Piston defense. “We were looking for the perfect shot rather than the good shot.”

Heck, even if they settled for the fair shot, they should have done better than the .319 shooting percentage they checked in with at game’s end. And, as pitiful as that is, it’s not even a season low, although the likes of Kendall Gill (0-of-5), Williams (1-of-6), Marbury (6-of-20), Chris Carr (1-of-9) and Lucious Harris (0-of-4) did their best to try to make it so. No wonder Marbury ripped off his shirt. It’s impressive that he didn’t swallow a bullet.

“I often take off my shirt. I’ll take off my shirt sometimes after a victory,” said Marbury, who had 16 points and seven assists. “We didn’t play well and they played great.”

Actually, a bunch of statues would have looked great against the Nets (5-21) who, in Casey’s words, “were receiving and reacting and they were initiating.”

The Pistons were the aggressors even with things like a flagrant two foul (debatable) that earned Christian Laettner an ejection with 9:40 left.

With Jerry Stackhouse scoring nine of his 17 points, the Pistons built a double-digit lead in the first quarter and were up, 30-20, entering the second. Then it got bad. Real bad. The Pistons did their best to help – in one six-possession stretch, they missed a shot and committed nine turnovers. And the Nets failed to gain ground. They limped into halftime on the tail end of a 46-29 horror.

“We came out, played well, played hard, played unselfishly,” said Piston Grant Hill, who had 13 points, nine rebounds and eight assists. “We had good ball movement.’

Oh, in case you were wondering, the Nets didn’t do any of those above things.

“I didn’t think it was their defense, so much as our offense,” said Keith Van Horn, who scored 27 points and in very un-Net-like fashion, made more shots than he missed (8-of-13). “Defensively, we played a solid ball game.”

Well, Detroit only scored 84 points. But the Pistons, who got 18 points from Bison Dele, did shoot .507. And it’s not like the league awoke yesterday and said, “Hey, let’s give points out for deflections.”

And so the Nets detonated any of the momentum they gained with victories in their two previous home games, against Toronto and Dallas. The Nets had hoped they were building something. Basically, though, they simply dug the hole deeper.

“This knocked the wind out of us a little bit,” admitted Kerry Kittles, a 15-point scorer. “We should have responded and we didn’t.”

There’s always next time. Pity the poor Pacers tomorrow. Boy, are the Nets ever going to take out their frustrations on them.