NEWARK – The Nets ran out of luck on St. Patrick’s Day. The team wearing Shamrock Green took it from them.

Even if the Bulls were wearing their normal road colors they probably would have made the necessary plays down the stretch, the ones the Nets didn’t. Chicago was the aggressor and in control most of the time and when it came to crunch time you expected Derrick Rose to show why he’s the leading candidate for MVP.

He did and the Bulls showed why they’re the East’s top team right now in an 84-73 victory that halted the Nets’ five-game winning streak.

You expected it to happen at some point. The Nets were the better executing team down the stretch in the previous five games. But after erasing a 14-point lead and putting themselves in position to win for the sixth straight time, the Nets couldn’t close this one.

We’ve seen this before, but not much since Deron Williams arrived and not at all this month.

They were the better late-game team in both games against the Raptors in London. They beat the Warriors here with Brook Lopez carrying them late. They came back from 20 down to beat Blake Griffin and the Clippers in overtime. And the Nets played smarter, harder and with more energy than the Celtics.

But against the Bulls, the Nets didn’t have that late-game magic. They couldn’t get the stops they needed and couldn’t make shots against the Bulls’ stingy defense.

“We could have played a lot better,” Williams said. “We could have shot a lot better; 35 percent from the field, it’s tough to win. They’re a good defensive team. That’s what they pride themselves on. They’re No. 1 in the league. It’s no surprise they were able to hold us to that.”

Some were surprised because of how the Nets have played lately. But it is hard to win when your All-Star point guard is 1-for-12 and as a team, you shoot 23-for-72 over the final 42:34.

It is a wonder the Nets were in the game with those kind of numbers overall. Yet they were because they played good defense, too. Both sides missed plenty of open shots, too, including Rose, who was just 8-for-23, 0-for-5 from three.

Their struggles aside, the Nets were tied 69-69 with under four minutes to go. They were down two with the ball, but Lopez missed a jump-hook.

Then after Williams stole the ball from Rose, the Prudential Center crowd rose, hoping they were going to see another tie or the Nets take the lead for the first time since a minute was left in the first quarter.

Williams saw Anthony Morrow open for a second in the corner for a three. But by the time Williams got the ball back and threw it to Morrow, Rose had recovered and made his way to the Nets’ sharpshooter.

Rose stole the Williams pass and went in for the layup that made it 73-69 and made it seem like the Nets were running out of luck. They proved to be as they missed their next two shots and fell behind 76-69 after a free throw and a Joakim Noah tip in with the clock approaching two minutes.

“I like the way we came back,” Nets coach Avery Johnson said. “We could’ve put our heads down, but we came back. Guys fought hard, got the game tied, and then we were down by two and just couldn’t keep it going, couldn’t sustain it.”

They ran out of luck, out of magic, but Rose and the Bulls played a big part in the Nets’ first loss this month.

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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.)