Brook Lopez didn’t remember the last time the Nets won three straight games, which isn’t surprising. Most players don’t recall numbers like that.

But if anyone should have remembered it was Lopez. He’s the only player left from the franchise’s last three-game winning streak, which came during his rookie season in late January/early February 2009.

The Nets matched that elusive feat last night with a Lopez-led 94-90 victory over the Golden State Warriors at The Rock that was impressive for many reasons.

* They did it without their new All-Star point guard Deron Williams. He was back in Dallas to be with his wife Amy, who gave birth to their fourth child, Desmond, yesterday.

* Lopez was dominant, scoring 26 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. He scored the last seven points of the game as he put the Nets on his shoulders and carried them to the victory.

* Kris Humphries was terrific with 11 points, 15 boards and four blocked shots. The biggest one came with 2:47 left and Dorell Wright about to give the Warriors a five-point lead. Humphries, whose blocks usually are emphatic, brought everyone to his feet with this rejection.

* Anthony Morrow scored 22, but his defense was solid, too. He blocked a Stephen Curry layup right before the Humphries’ denial and was all over Reggie Williams on the next-to-last Warriors’ possession and the Nets up two.

* Sundiata Gaines, on a 10-day contract, played good defense on Monta Ellis and finished with eight assists and four steals. Gaines was on the floor for more than eight minutes of the fourth, including the final 3:23.

* The Nets’ overall defense was stifling. They held the Warriors to 13 points in the fourth, on 5-for-19 shooting. Golden State had one field goal in the last 6:38 and scored just one point in the final 4:50. 

“We just got stops,” coach Avery Johnson said. “Guys communicated. They were physical inside.

“Monta Ellis, he’s been averaging about 20 points in each of his last (few) second halves of his ball games so we had to do something to try to defuse him and so we put Gaines on him and Gaines did a nice job for us down the stretch. Brook and Hump did a nice job for us helping our perimeter guys out, especially on Monta Ellis.”

All of these things were huge. But you can’t discount the importance of hanging tough through everything, including going more than four minutes of the fourth without a basket. That was something the Nets displayed in winning both games against Toronto over the weekend in London and it definitely carried over to the States.
 
That confidence and belief that can be attributed to Williams’ arrival is a major part of the first three-game winning streak since Lawrence Frank was the Nets coach and Vince Carter and Devin Harris were the two best players on the team.

When Lopez was told this was the Nets’ first three-game surge since his rookie season, he said, “Probably. We just want to keep it going.”

Do you remember it?

“No, I have no idea. I don’t even remember. We were 19-19 before the All-Star break. How many games did we win that year? Thirty something.”

It was 34, but the fact Lopez remembered the Nets were 19-19 at one point was impressive.

Now the Nets have a chance for their first four-game winning streak in more than two years. It came during the same stretch. They won four in a row from Jan. 31-Feb. 7. We didn’t have the heart to bring it up to Lopez and ask if he remembered when that happened.

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Follow me on Twitter: @Al_Iannazzone

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