Nets crushed by Pacers in ugly loss that puts them on brink of elimination

Monday in Indiana, the Nets played like a team that’s already been eliminated.

It can become official Wednesday.

Brooklyn rolled over in a 133-111 loss to the Pacers before a crowd of 16,522 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, a defeat that saw their thin postseason all but evaporate.

The Nets’ tragic number — the total of their combined losses and Atlanta victories before they’re eliminated — got cut down to two.

The Hawks played later Monday in Chicago, with a chance to slice it to one.

That means the Nets could see any hope of making the Eastern Conference play-in officially stamped out on Wednesday, when they host a rematch against these same Pacers.

Even facing elimination, it’s hard to imagine it going much worse than Monday.

Brooklyn trailed by as much as 36 multiple times, despite 22 points from Cam Thomas and 21 off the bench from Trendon Watford.

After ex-Knick Obi Toppin found Ben Sheppard for a conventional three-point play and a 106-70 lead with 1:20 left in the third, he threw down a dunk moments later to make it 108-72.

It was a low-energy performance from Brooklyn.

Star guard Tyrese Haliburton led Indiana with 27 points, 13 assists and four rebounds, shooting 4-of-7 from 3-point range.

After allowing the first 17 consecutive points of Sunday’s loss to the Lakers, Brooklyn coughed up 15 unanswered during the early stages a night later.

Thomas and Mikal Bridges (19 points, six assists) hit the first two buckets of the game, only to watch the Nets surrender a 15-0 run.

Haliburton found big man Myles Turner for a finger roll that left Brooklyn down by 11, and they never challenged.

As a matter of fact, the deficit just kept swelling.

The Nets went into the locker room down 75-47, the second-most points they’d allowed in a first half this season.

About the only excitement of the evening came in a dustup between Dennis Schroder and Indiana’s Jalen Smith with 5:55 left in the third quarter and Brooklyn trailing 87-62.

Schroder drove and got fouled, then flailed and made contact with Smith’s face, knocking his goggles off. Smith pushed Schroder down and sent him tumbling into a cameraman seated courtside.

Veteran ref Scott Wall physically held Smith back, send them both into the stanchion.

Both benches stayed calm, and after a long six-minute review, Schroder was assessed a technical and Smith a flagrant 2 to get ejected.

Schroder predictably got showered with boos whenever he touched the ball, and with Turner forced out of the game with a sprain, the Pacers were down two big men.

It didn’t help.

Brooklyn allowed the next seven unanswered points right after the dustup, and a 20-9 run to see the game blown even further open.

The Nets (29-47) fell to six games behind 10th-place Atlanta, pending the Hawks’ tilt at Chicago.