EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (Ticker) -- On a night when the New Jersey Nets were missing the injured Kenyon Martin, Rodney Rogers and Lucious Harris, former teammate Anthony Johnson caused them the most pain.
Johnson nailed back-to-back 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to stop a huge run as the Indiana Pacers held off the undermanned Nets, 87-81.
Ron Artest scored 21 points, Johnson finished with 17 and Jermaine O'Neal 15 for the Pacers, who had a 71-54 lead with 9 1/2 minutes remaining before the Nets rallied. They pulled within 76-74 with 3:48 left on a pair of free throws by Jason Collins.
But Johnson, who signed with Indiana in the offseason after shooting 55 percent (17-of-31) in the playoffs for the Nets, halted the surge 21 seconds later with a 3-pointer from the left corner. He hit another from the same spot to make it 82-74 with 2:46 remaining.
"I put a lot into it," Johnson said of his outside shot. "I'm very confident in my shot. I can't always say it's been like that in the past, but I feel that when I get a good look, a good pass, I feel I can knock it down."
"That Anthony Johnson is a little bit better than the one I remember," Nets coach Byron Scott said. "He made some great shots, he played great. ... Anytime you hit threes, it deflates you a little bit."
New Jersey climbed within 82-79 with 42 seconds left on a 3-pointer by Richard Jefferson, but Indiana made 5-of-6 free throws down the stretch to seal the win.
"This summer, the situation came up where they decided to go another route," Johnson said of the Nets, for whom he spent two seasons as Jason Kidd's backup. "I felt a little slighted, but at the same time, you just have to pick up things and move on. I found a better place in Indiana with coach (Rick) Carlisle and the guys on the team and coaching staff really believe in me."
Kerry Kittles collected 23 points and nine rebounds, Jefferson had 18 and eight and Aaron Williams 15 and 11 for the Nets, who scored just 75 points in Tuesday's loss to Houston.
"I'm stumped," Scott said. "I have no reason why we're not playing with the type of energy and the effort that we are accustomed to seeing. Their team played with a lot more energy than we did. They were a lot more aggressive until we got down 16, 17, 18 points, and then we got more aggressive. We aren't playing with a sense of urgency right now."
"He should be disappointed because we're not playing with the type of fire we should be," Williams said of Scott. "We didn't play 48 minutes and we had some lapses. We can't afford to have lapses when we have some guys injured."
Martin is out with an ankle sprain and Rogers with a dislocated thumb. Harris is on the injured list with lower back pain.
The start of the game was delayed some 15 minutes due to a leak in the roof of Continental Airlines Arena that left a portion of the court wet.
New Jersey jumped out to a 14-6 lead but settled for a 23-22 edge after one quarter. Indiana went ahead, 37-36, with 5 1/2 minutes to go in the half and took a 48-35 advantage into the break.
"I think that they came out very aggressive in the first half and us, being the competitors that we are, we're not just going to let someone come in here and run us over," Jefferson said. "It was kind of a case of too little, too late."
Indiana took its biggest lead, 64-45, on a jumper by Fred Jones with 2:38 left in the third quarter before New Jersey scored the final nine points of the period.
"One of our goals is to become a very good road team, and this is certainly three steps in the right direction," said Carlisle, whose squad improved to 3-0 on the road. "I don't think you can diminish New Jersey's injuries, but on the other hand, I thought our guys really concentrated to get the win."
Kidd played 43 minutes, contributing 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting and eight assists.
"The past two summers, they've said Jason Kidd plays too many minutes," Johnson said. "I felt like they had a legitimate backup point guard and I just need the opportunity to play a bit more. When you have a player like Jason Kidd that plays at such a high level, you can't go wrong by giving him a lot of minutes. It catches up with them at the end of the season, but I felt that that could have been avoided."
