EAST RUTHERFORD -- All the words that were used in the locker room after Friday’s game in Toronto seemed to have struck a chord with the Nets.

We’re just talking about the ones they used to us. More colorful things probably were said among the players and coaches.

But to beatwriters after Friday’s debacle in Toronto, Nets players used words like “pitiful,” “horrible,” “inexcusable,” and “awful,” and one of them questioned very loudly where everyone’s pride was.

Less than 24 hours later, the Nets responded, playing with a passion they didn’t have at all in Toronto, an energy that was zapped from the start in Canada and a hunger that never made its way into the arena. They had all those things Friday and still lost by 19 to the Lakers, 103-84.

It was a bad loss, but the feeling in the locker room on this night was the Nets are going to be OK. The Lakers are the champs and the Nets battled the champs into the third quarter. That snow outside the Izod Center was confetti, because this was a momentous occasion.

"I was proud of the way the guys played," coach Kiki Vandeweghe said. "They came out and played hard. They competed. They competed every play.

"Tonight felt completely different," he added. "Last night we didn’t come with any effort. We weren’t in the game right from the start. That was upsetting. What I asked the guys to do is you come with effort and they did tonight."

The truth is the Nets did show a little something less than 24 hours after no one gave them a chance to stand up to Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. Make no mistake, this was a game for a little while and much longer than anyone might have imagined.

Down 12 in the second period, Devin Harris led a Nets’ comeback with a quarter we haven’t seen from him since last season. He scored 17 points in the second to push the Nets to a two-point lead at halftime that they extended to six in the third quarter.

Could it be? Could the team that has won just two of its 27 games beat the defending champs, owners of the best record in the NBA, one night after falling behind by 37 in the first half and 40 in the second to an underachieving Raptors team?

It would have made for a great story, but Bryant, especially, and the rest of the star-studded Lakers had a different ending in mind.

Bryant, broken finger and all, wouldn’t let the Lakers lose to the Nets. He wasn’t going to disappoint all the Laker fans that braved the snow to chant M-V-P and hold up their camera phones to take pictures.

“I needed a little burst to get us back in the game pretty quickly,” Bryant said. “We didn’t want New Jersey to get more confidence when it got to a six-point advantage. We didn’t want them getting any further, so I kind of turned it on a little bit.”

That was all the Lakers needed and all the Nets could take. They already erased one double-digit lead. They couldn’t make another one disappear after Bryant helped put them up 10.

The Nets got it down to seven. Seven became 15 about four minutes later and 21 about four minutes after that.

“They made shots and we didn't,” Harris said. “They got to the free-throw line. They got easy buckets. They did a lot to keep us on that other end and not allow us to get in that transition game that we like.”

Just as you would expect.

Yet there were smiles instead of frowns, and players and coaches feeling better about themselves. It doesn’t matter that this was the Nets’ seventh consecutive loss and seventh straight by double figures. The Nets were in this game longer than anyone expected, maybe even longer than they did, and they now believe they figured out how they need to play.

The next thing is the Nets hope they don’t have to play too long with out Chris Douglas-Roberts. He suffered a level 1 ankle sprain with 4:47 left in this blowout. X-rays were negative. Everything else about this night seemed positive, excluding the outcome.

Al Iannazzone covers the Nets for The Record (Bergen County, N.J.)