Grizzlies 96

Nets 93

The Nets couldn’t hold onto the ball, and Jason Kidd couldn’t get the call.

When Kidd and his teammates were tearing up the Eastern Conference the past two seasons, they were unstoppable at home and titanium tough in the fourth quarter. At the Meadowlands and in crunch time, they rarely beat themselves.

But last night’s horrendous 96-93 loss to mediocre Memphis was sealed when the sleepwalking Nets awoke just in time to play some of their sloppiest basketball of the season, wilting under pressure with a spate of turnovers in the final two minutes.

Trailing by two in the final 6.2 seconds, Kidd sealed the Nets’ fourth straight loss when he careened off a pick-and-roll, jumped into Grizzlies forward Stromile Swift and heaved up a prayer that didn’t even hit backboard. Then he waited for a call that never came.

“That crew missed a good game,” Kidd said.

Actually, it was a stinker. The Nets were somnambulant, then sloppy.

Going through the motions again as they trailed for most of the first 3½ quarters, the Nets used a fourth-quarter blitz to eliminate a 12-point Memphis lead with less than seven minutes to go. Kidd gave his team a 91-89 lead with 1:56 remaining with one of two free throws.

The next three trips, the Nets committed turnovers.

“I’ve been worried for about two weeks,” Byron Scott said. “We’re not doing what we can do on both sides of the court.”

When it mattered most, the Nets couldn’t shoot straight, couldn’t pass crisply and couldn’t stop the Grizzlies, who were playing short-handed. They were without point guard Jason Williams, who was out with back spasms; and without Wesley Person or Bonzi Wells, who were traded for each other in the afternoon.

The Nets fell to 2-6 in what used to be their impenetrable home fortress.

“I can’t say my teammates [stink]. I can’t say I [stink],” said Richard Jefferson, who recorded his first double-double of the season with 24 points and 10 rebounds.

The Nets couldn’t get key stops in the early stages of the fourth, when the Grizzlies sprinted to a 12-point lead, 81-69, with 8:40 remaining.

Jason Collins hit a pair of free throws that gave the Nets their first lead, 90-89, since 6:24 of the first quarter. But after Kidd’s free throw, James Posey (19 points) hit a baseline jumper to tie it; Swift capitalized on a turnover with a go-ahead dunk; and Pau Gasol (19 points) made the defensive play of the game. He stepped in for a steal on a Kerry Kittles pass and fed Posey for the dunk that sealed it. Kenyon Martin answered with a dunk, but Kidd’s tying bid fell short.

“The last couple minutes, it was right there for us,” Scott said.