Nets finish brutal Western trip with loss to Jazz as Cam Johnson exits early

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 up.

The Nets got throttled 125-108 by the Jazz before a sellout crowd of 18,206 at Delta Center on Monday night.

And they didn’t just lose the game but some of their pride, outworked, outhustled and outmuscled by a team they know they should’ve defeated.

“We just needed to take more pride defensively,” center Nic Claxton said. “Just keeping those guys in front of us, just straight line drives again are too easy, which is causing us to rotate too much and it’s giving them rebounds, 3s. So I think it’s just a pride thing, honestly.”

The Nets wasted a game-high 32 points from Cam Thomas.

The disappointing defeat dropped the Nets’ record to 13-13, and just 1-4 on this trip.

After Mikal Bridges had said beforehand they just didn’t want to come back home under .500, they barely avoided doing so with the victory over old friend Kevin Durant and the Suns their only win on the trek.

Getting knocked around Monday night by the Jazz (10-17) was the only bad loss on the trip, but it was a legitimately concerning one.

Brooklyn got hammered on the glass, outrebounded 51 to 36.

The Nets shot just 5 of 12 in the restricted area, blocked five times by Utah center Walker Kessler alone.

And on the other end, they let the Jazz score at will at the rim, a staggering 19 of 22.

“They just played harder than us. Rebounding, getting out, mucking up on defense. Yeah, they played harder than us,” said Bridges, who struggled with 13 points on 4-for-16 shooting with five assists and one rebound. “We’re not playing defense; and [Nic Claxton] is stepping up, we’re not helping him.

“So me personally, I didn’t do anything, especially rebounding. So we’ve just got to help him out and help each other out and we’ve got to rebound together.”

Bridges is shooting just 33.3 percent over his past four games, and took Monday’s loss hard.

“As far as missing shots, just did everything bad [Monday]: Missing shots, free throws, not defending, not rebounding. Just a bad one,” Bridges said. “Pretty much just out there and letting my teammates down, coaches down, playing five-on-four out there basically while I’m out there. So I just gotta be better and I won’t let that happen again.”

Thomas cracked 30 for the sixth time in his past 17 games, but Spencer Dinwiddie was the next highest scorer with 17 and 11 assists.

Claxton added 11 points, seven boards and three blocks.

But the Nets didn’t support him on the glass, or defensively.

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 their 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 went on a 7-2 run, capped by a Claxton tip-in just before the half.

The Nets were clinging to a 78-77 edge when they gave up an 11-0 run, the lead and any semblance of the momentum.

Sexton, who troubled Bridges all night, 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 cushion to 101-89.

The deficit grew from there.

“They started mixing a box-and-one on me,” Thomas said. “[This] was the first time I’ve seen a box-and-one since AAU, in high school, so that was different. I guess gotta get used to most teams are gonna try to mix it up on me.”