MILWAUKEE – Carlos Delfino scored 26 points, making a career-high eight 3-pointers, and the Milwaukee Bucks beat the New Jersey Nets 110-95 on Friday night to halt a three-game losing streak.
John Salmons added 25 points to help the Bucks, who still cling to hopes they can reach the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
Milwaukee (27-41) is 2½ games behind eighth-place Indiana and a game back of Charlotte in the Eastern Conference with 14 to play. The Bucks also are hoping to get Drew Gooden, Ersan Ilyasova and Michael Redd back from injuries in the next week.
Brook Lopez scored 25 points for his ninth straight game with at least 20, while Deron Williams had another tough shooting night despite 18 points as the Nets lost their second in two nights.
Milwaukee shot 39 percent from the field during the three-game skid that followed a three-game winning streak. The Nets didn't pose the same defensive challenges as the Celtics, Hawks and Magic did. The Bucks hit 57 percent of their shots, just shy of their season-best 58.3 percent set in January against the Nets in New Jersey.
Brandon Jennings had 16 points and 10 assists, and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute added 15 points.
Milwaukee finished the third quarter on a 6-0 run, capped when Jennings hit a 5-footer in the lane in the closing seconds to give the Bucks an 80-73 lead. Delfino's seventh 3-pointer made it 95-84 midway through the fourth and his eighth came in the final minute.
New Jersey used a 7-0 run to cut it to 95-91 with 4:32 to play, but never got closer down the stretch.
Andrew Bogut returned after missing a game with a migraine headache and made a big early impression with a slam over Kris Humphries that drew a foul. Bogut converted the three-point play, finishing with 13 points and seven rebounds in 35 minutes, but was holding his right elbow at every break in the fourth quarter after getting tangled up with Lopez.
Jennings said in the locker room before the game that he wished Williams hadn't gone 1 of 12 the night before in a loss to Chicago because he knew the point guard would be poised for a big game.
He didn't have one.
Williams has been slowed by a strained right wrist that Nets coach Avery Johnson said will need four to six weeks of no contact to heal completely in the offseason.
Williams scored nine first-quarter points, including a 63-footer at the buzzer that didn't touch the rim going in, but that was the last shot he made until a jumper in the fourth, nearly 30 minutes later.
He finished 4 of 13 from the field and 8 of 9 from the free throw line.
Notes: Gooden, who has missed 27 straight games and 42 overall this season, says he had a cortisone shot last Friday and is 100 percent pain free from plantar fasciitis that's bothered him most of the season. ... Ilyasova (concussion) could return to practice as early as Saturday and may be available for Milwaukee's game on Sunday against the Knicks. He's missed the last three weeks. ... Redd is on track to return next week.
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