"One good quarter -- actually, one good half of a quarter -- cannot make up for three bad ones.

Rookie Kyrie Irving scored 21 of his career-high 32 points in the fourth quarter -- 17 in the final three minutes -- but it was not enough for the Cavaliers to save themselves from a 99-96 loss to the New Jersey Nets on Friday night at The Q.

Irving's outburst helped the Cavs cut a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit to three. The problem was falling behind by 17 in the first place.

"Obviously not happy with how the game went, and it started from the beginning of the game," Cavs coach Byron Scott said as his team slipped to 7-11. "I didn't think that we came out with the energy that we needed. The last quarter we played with tremendous energy -- six or seven minutes left in the game. But we can't play that way. That's way too late. If we don't come out and play aggressively and with that type of energy from the start to the finish, we're going to keep having these up-and-down-type games."

Asked if he was impressed with Irving's late scoring surge, Scott looked puzzled at the question.

"We lost the game, period," he said. "So, no."

Irving wasn't accepting congratulations either. "