A shovel will go into the ground today in Brooklyn. It’s probably not the same one the Nets have used to bury themselves, though.

The Nets need that one because they continue to throw dirt on themselves.

This may sound crazy, but the Nets played a winnable game last night here against the Mavericks. It was winnable because Dirk Nowitzki couldn’t have been more invisible, winnable because the Nets were rolling early and led by as many 18 points.

But the Mavericks have too many other players, including someone named Jason Kidd, and they just weren’t going to have their 12-game winning streak end against the Nets. Instead, Dallas won for the 13th straight time, beating the Nets 96-87 last night.

If you break it down, it was similar to many of the Nets’ losses, including the game against Memphis when they couldn’t capitalize on Zach Randolph being out. Nowitzki was in the building and on the floor, but he made just three field goals, and just one after halftime.

The Nets could have had their most impressive win of the season – if they could contain Kidd and Caron Butler and didn’t go through one of their predictable shooting slumps.

Consider these numbers: The Nets were 18-for-28 over the game’s first 15:51 and scored 41 points. Over the final 32:09 they were 16-for-55 and had just 47. Brook Lopez had 10 points in the first 6:22 and zero after that.

But the Nets were in the game at the end, like in Memphis. They had several chances to tie or take the lead and couldn’t. In the last 3:08 they made one field goal and scored two points.

Kidd, meanwhile, had 20 points in the game, including nine in the fourth – all on three-pointers. The big one gave the Mavericks a 90-85 lead with 2:43 left.

But there were other backbreakers, like Butler’s 20-foot step-back jumper to put the Mavs up five one minute later and then a multiple-possession trip that resulted in a Brendan Haywood put-back and 94-87 lead with 50.8 seconds remaining.

From backbreakers we go to groundbreakings. This is the big day, the day Bruce Ratner envisioned when he purchased the Nets.

The current Nets’ owner took over in 2004 and his mission was to build an arena in Brooklyn. After nearly six years, a shovel will go in the ground, just weeks shy of Ratner losing control of the team.

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov purchased majority interest from Ratner in September and is expected to take control in early-to-mid April if all goes well.

The ideal situation for the Nets would have been for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to be taking place soon rather than this. But you need the groundbreaking before the big ceremony for a grand opening.

That’s the next big thing, but it would have been much more advantageous for the Nets, with this summer’s free agency looming, to have the new building to attract players.

The Nets will try to sell Newark for 2-3 years to the likes of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Amar’e Stoudemire. And it’s nicer, better and more appealing than the Izod Center. But Brooklyn could have been what sold James and other top-tier free agents.

New York carries much more weight than New Jersey.

Maybe James signs a two-year deal with Cleveland and then comes to the Nets after that, just when they’re ready to open Brooklyn. Who knows? I’m sure that’s crossed some people’s minds

But this should be a banner day for the franchise, even if loyal New Jersey followers of the team don’t feel that way. They don’t want to see the Nets leave.

Take solace in this: there’s still another two years at least that the Nets will play in New Jersey and they will be much better than this one.

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