For a short time, Brooklyn figured to be Brian Shaw’s new home.

The Nets had extended an invitation for a second interview for the vacant head coaching job, and Shaw, then an assistant with the Indiana Pacers, accepted. The buzz was he was a top candidate for the position.

He boarded a plane from Indiana bound for Brooklyn.

But when he arrived, everything had changed. He had gone from candidate to runner-up in the short span of a flight, and he wasn’t fully aware of his altered status until he dropped his bags down in the hotel.

“When I first interviewed, (Nets general manager) Billy King said he was going to hire Jason (Kidd) or me,” said Shaw, the Nuggets’ first-year coach. “I knew that he had interviewed Jason a day or two days before he interviewed me. So, I think it was really close. It was close until I got off the plane, got to my hotel and read that they were reaching an agreement with him, before I even did my interview. Even though they denied it, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Given a chance to do it over again, the Nets might make a different decision.

The Nuggets go into tonight’s game against Brooklyn one of the hottest teams in the NBA, winners of six consecutive games.

Meanwhile, the Nets are in turmoil. Losses are commonplace, too much so for a team pegged to contend in the Eastern Conference. Rookie head coach Kidd already is under fire for the bad start and other missteps that helped to fan the flames of the struggles. Injuries to key players haven’t helped.

Shaw hasn’t looked back much on what happened in the summer.

“Everything works out for a reason,” Shaw said. “I’m happy where I am. I’m happy the way things turned out. I wouldn’t wish anything bad on anybody.”

The Nets won their most recent game, at Memphis. They bring a 5-12 record into the contest, underscoring how difficult it is to win games in this league for rookie head coaches.

“It is (hard),” Shaw said. “And also, in all fairness to them, they’ve had some injuries. We know what that was like, from training camp to preseason not having Wilson (Chandler); we still don’t have Gallo (Danilo Gallinari) . Now, JaVale (McGee) being out. Fortunately for us, we have enough depth and we’re getting enough contributions from everybody to be able to hold it down.

“The Nets are struggling, and we don’t want them to get everything right against us. We don’t want it to happen on our watch.”

Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dempseypost

DENVER AT BROOKYLN

5:30 p.m. Tuesday, ALT; 950 AM

Spotlight on Joe Johnson: This was supposed to be the season when Joe Johnson got championship-caliber help in his quest to get to the NBA Finals with the Nets. But while he’s averaging 15.6 points and continues to be Mr. Reliable from 3-point range (44.9 percent), the players are falling off around him because of an assortment of injuries. He’ll have to assume a bigger scoring burden if the Nets are to break out of their early-season funk and climb up the Eastern Conference standings.

NOTEBOOK

Nuggets: The Nuggets enter Tuesday’s game against Brooklyn on a three-game road winning streak. They last lost on the road at Oklahoma City on Nov. 18. … The Nuggets’ unreal 72 bench points in their victory over Toronto on Sunday bumped their average from reserves from 43.4 points to 45.1. … In the six-game winning streak, the Nuggets are averaging 105.8 points.

Nets: The Nets announced forward Paul Pierce will miss two weeks with a broken hand. He joins a host of players out with injuries, including point guard Deron Williams, forward Andrei Kirilenko and shooting guard Jason Terry. … This is the first of the opponents the Nuggets will play that feature former assistants. John Welch is on the Nets bench under head coach Jason Kidd. Welch coached for many years under former Nuggets coach George Karl.

Christopher Dempsey, The Denver Post