The Brooklyn Nets are a tale of two teams.

There is the first-half Nets, who can compete and have a chance to beat any team in the NBA.

And then there’s the second-half Nets, who play like they’re still in the Lionel Hollins era — sorry, coach.

The Nets made their TNT debut Thursday night against the Denver Nuggets. At the half, the Nets led 61-49. Brooklyn dominated the paint, played excellent defense, made their shots, had excellent ball movement, and best of all, limited themselves to just three turnovers.

Dzanan Musa, Nic Claxton and Spencer Dinwiddie gave the Nets a much-needed lift off the bench, keeping the talented Denver bench in check.

But the positives abruptly ended as the second-quarter came to a close.

In the second half, the Nets only scored 32(!) points.

Yes, you read that correctly.

To put that abysmal number into perspective, the Nets scored 35 points in the first quarter alone.

Denver did play with more energy on defense, but this wasnot an all-time defensive performance by any means.

The Nets committed only four turnovers in the second half. Instead of turnovers plaguing Brooklyn, it was a stagnant offense that missed open shots, often times choosing a contested floater over a pass to an open man.

Needless to say, it was a frustrating two quarters to watch.

Defensively, the Nets were not terrible. Brooklyn’s defense never truly fell apart for an extended period of time. In fact, the Nets were down by just three points with just under four minutes left in the game.

Despite being in the game late, it felt as though the Nets never stood a chance after the third quarter.

Denver picked up the win, beating Brooklyn 101-93.

The loss makes it three straight defeats for the Nets, falling to 4-7. Brooklyn will head to Chicago for a Saturday evening matchup. This will be Brooklyn’s final game of the five-game road trip.

Earlier, it was announced that the Nets will be without Caris LeVert for reportedly 4-6 weeks due to a thumb ligament injury. The injury is similar to the one Dinwiddie suffered in the latter half of last season. Dinwiddie missed three weeks, but returned without skipping a beat.

The Nets signed veteran guard Iman Shumpert to replace the injured LeVert. Shumpert played a combined 62 games (42 starts) for the Kings and Rockets last season. While Shumpert was present at the game in Denver, he did not see any action.

Thursday night’s game was eerily similar to Brooklyn’s loss to Utah earlier in the week. The Nets led by double-digits at the half in both games, eventually falling apart in the third quarter.

The Nets need to avoid a total collapse, and all of a sudden, Saturday’s game feels like a must-win.