I am going to be chatting over at ESPN’s Daily Dime page again tonight, so come over and join in. I will put up the link as soon as it is available.
UPDATE: I promised you a link, and here it is. I will be chatting until around 8ish:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-091102
Game 3 @ Charlotte (1-2)
Projected Starting Lineup
Felton is a solid all-around guard, but he can’t shoot. This allows defenders to go under screens with him, making it easier to keep him out of the lane. If he gets in the lane though, watch out. He can finish with either hand and he is a good passer and can find the open man.
A physical guard at his, best burrowing his way to the basket. Forced into the starting role with Raja Bell injured. On defense, Graham’s strength makes him a good rebounder.
Wallace is a do-it-all type guy who can attack the basket and get to the lane at will, and on the defensive end, his athleticism allows him to block shots, get rebounds, and get into the passing lanes. Would rather drive than shoot, back up off of him and give him the shot.
One of the best passing bigs in the NBA. He maybe passes too much. Diaw can be out-matched physically, but that won’t be a problem against the Nets. He has turned himself into a good three point shooter, so you need to close out on him and can’t let him float. Be physical with him.
When healthy, he can be one of the best rebounder/shot blocking big man in the NBA. Lacks post moves and a back to the basket game, but when he gets around the basket, he can finish with the best of them. According to NBA.com,Chandler took 18 of 256 field-goal attempts from beyond the immediate vicinity of the rim. He made just two of those shots. Great off the pick and roll when he can slash into the lane.
Bench
Small/Quick penetrator who gets into the lane a good amount of the time. He isn’t the fastest guard out there, but with the ball in his hands, he is quick enough. Disciplined defender, who has good fundamentals, but struggles with longer/more athletic guards.
Shoots the 3-ball well for a man his size. Defensively, he’s about neutral, with the ability to hinder jump shots because of his length but an inability to keep penetrators in front of him because of his general lack of foot speed and athleticism.
Henderson has posted consistently strong block and steal rates for his size throughout his college career. He has terrific athleticism and should be a plus defender at the NBA level. Offensively, he’s very good at getting into the lane, where he is both a solid finisher and he gets to the line often. For a two-guard, he’s a decent ballhandler and good passer. His shot is questionable at best, so back off of him and let him shoot.
Career backup center.
His combination of height and athleticism allows him to be an immediate factor on the defensive end. Still isn’t polished offensive player. He is solid around the rim, but he needs to work on his shot and his face-up game.
He displays a nice shooting touch and is already a good free throw shooter.
Good on defense. Bad on offense.
Out.
Out.
Offensive Tendencies:
As a team without a proven shooter, the Bobcats thrive on getting in the lane and scoring on the fast break. If the Nets keep them out of the lane, there is a good chance they can win this game.
Defensive Tendencies:
In Tyson Chandler, the Bobcats have a human eraser that allows their guards/wings pressure the ball. Gerald Wallace loves getting into the passing lanes, so be aware of him.
Keys To Victory:
Keep the Bobcats out of the lane. Get Brook Lopez going. Try and get Tyson Chandler in foul trouble.
It’s only been three games – including one game where the team blew a 16-point lead in the fourth quarter, and another game where they game up 123-points to a team that was missing two of their top scorers – but there’s already some buzz in the Nets locker room about “trust,” “toughness,” and “heart.”
The catalyst for all this were comments by Chris Douglas-Roberts Saturday night, who believed the team didn’t retaliate properly after he was slammed to the floor in the second quarter on a dunk attempt. “You have to protect each other,” CDR said. “It’s an unwritten rule. You protect each other. Later that night on Twitter, he wrote similar comments about the team needing to commit hard fouls.
In a report by Al Iannazzone in the Bergen Record this morning, more Nets echo these sentiments. Here are some of their quotes:
“I think people are afraid,” center Brook Lopez said of the defense. “It’s a team effort. [But] some guys are afraid that the help won’t be there.”
And here’s some more from Courtney Lee:
“That definitely has to do with trust,” defensive-minded guard Courtney Lee said. “You have to have trust in your teammates that they’ll have your back. If you’re out there pressuring the ball and the pick-and-roll comes and you’re a little late, you have to have trust that the help man is going to get the roll man so the big man can stay out a little longer.
When I first read the CDR quotes Saturday night, I was a bit annoyed and was ready to dedicate a post about him calling out his teammates, but I thought better of it. While there isn’t a lot to praise about the Nets defensive performance Saturday night, I do feel they made some attempts to get the Wizards back for the CDR foul. Specifically at the 5:01 mark in the third quarter, Gilbert Arenas had a free path to the rim, and Eduardo Najera came up on from behind and grabbed him by the shoulders to prevent the layup. Arenas didn’t crash to the floor in a heap, but the message was sent, so much so that Brendan Haywood starred to jaw with Najera after the play, who just smiled back and shook his head.
With that said, based on Iannazzone’s report, it’s certainly alarming that the team is already at the point of publicly questioning each other, specifically on the defensive end. Maybe they’re going to use theses words as a rallying cry headed into tonight’s matchup against the Charlotte Bobcats. But I’m not as sure about that.
HoopsWorld examines in-house candidates who could take on the lack of scoring left by Vince Carter’s departure.
By way of NetsDaily, Bruce Ratner quietly trademarked the Russian translation of “Brooklyn Nets,” two weeks before Mikhail Prokhorov agreed to purchase the team.
With Devin Harris out and an 0-3 start, the team is turning to Rafer Alston to veteran leadership.
Two of Brooklyn’s priciest penthouses are competing for the services of Mikhail Prokhorov.
This one is going to be a little shorter than the others, not because there wasn’t a good amount of mistakes, but because I could only get my hands on the first quarter of last night’s game. So your breakdown will come from there, but most of the stuff I am picking out continued on into the other quarters so it will still give you an idea of what went wrong during the game. After the jump, we will start the breakdown with what went wrong:
The Star-Ledger is reporting that the Nets are going to have to live without Devin Harris for at least the next 7-10 days as he’s now on his way to see a specialist in Chicago regarding his strained groin, which he originally suffered during a preseason game on October 13.
Harris, as quoted in Dave D’Alessandro’s report:
“It was never really all the way gone,” Harris said of the discomfort. “It was according to where I felt I had to be effective, and obviously be able to get to the spots that I need to get to on the court. The way I was playing (Friday) night — not be able to get to spots on the floor or beat my guy off the dribble — that’s something I can’t contend with.”
Obviously, Rafer Alston, who was pretty effective last night in the team’s awful loss to the Wizards, will man the point in Devin’s absence. Terrence Williams appears to have the nod backing up Alston, as the team is still without Keyon Dooling until at least the end of the month.
The fact that this is the original injury that hampered Harris in the preseason is a bit alarming to me. I was originally under the impression that the injury was one of those “we’ll rest you because these games don’t count” kind of injuries, but that’s clearly not the case if he tried to give it a go and couldn’t. For a “star” player, Devin tends to get a lot of these little tweaks and strains and he seems to have difficulty playing through the pain in an effective way. He was clearly struggling in the season’s first two games with both his jump shoot and his defense. Unfortunately, a groin strain strikes me as one of those injuries that tends to linger longer than it should. That, combine with ESPN’s John Hollinger’s recent interesting take on Devin’s second-half slide last season, and I wonder if Nets fans should maybe temper their enthusiasm in what kind of player they truly have in Devin Harris.
Lawrence Frank on the Nets last night: “Pitiful.”
Fred Kerber writes about Chris Douglas-Roberts’ early season struggles (though he did go for 25 last night).
Some more postgame coverage from Truth About It.net, TrueHoop’s Wizards blog.
In his rundown of teams with cap space to burn next summer, ESPN’s Marc Stein says the Nets have Cleveland “legitimately freaked” about their prospects of landing LeBron James.
Get it? Because it was Halloween last night? No? Well, Mark will be back to do these after the next game, he is obviously more clever to me.
The game didn’t start off too bad defensively, as the Nets held the Wizards to 28 points (should have been 25 – Gilbert Arenas drilled a 40 footer) that quarter and were only down four. On the offensive end, the Nets started off solid as well, with Rafer easily getting into the lane for a lay-up, Yi looked as if he was going to continue his hot shooting as he nailed a 20 footer, and CDR got to the foul line for the first time this season. The Nets had a 6-5 lead, and it looked as if this game was going to be competitive the whole way through. I was way off.
Brook also got a couple of touches early in the first, converting on a few nice passes. After the first quarter Brook didn’t do much of anything, but it wasn’t necessarily his fault. Brook had four points in the first quarter, and he was removed from the game with about 1 minute left. He didn’t return until there were 6 minutes left in the second quarter. Now this is where Lawrence Frank loses me, you are without Devin Harris, and Brook Lopez had an off game the night before. Tonight is a perfect example of when you give Brook the ball, ride your horse, and let him do work. You show that you have confidence in him. You don’t give him an extended rest as the Wizards (mainly Andray Blatche) start to score at will. In the meantime, when Brook was sitting out, Lawrence Frank decided to trot out a lineup of Terrence Williams, CDR, Bobby Simmons, Eduardo Najera, and Josh Boone. Does he really think that gives him the best chance of winning ball games? One more little rant on the rotation, Terrence Williams, who was making things happen the first half with a few nice passes (and one ridiculous put-back jam), only got 8 minutes in the first half. The same amount as Boone, and only 3 minutes less than Simmons. **Takes a deep breath.** OK, I think I am done venting.
Speaking of Andray Blatche, he absolutely killed the Nets last night. Don’t get me wrong, I am not taking anything away from this kid, he had a great game, and he will be a great talent in the future, but you can’t let him get 30 points exclusively taking jump shots (15-18 shooting). When you allow Gilbert Arenas to go off, you have to stop everyone else (the let him get his philosophy). When you let 2 players score 62 points on 24-31 shooting, you probably won’t win the game. Despite being a bulldog, Najera wasn’t quick enough or tall enough to stick with Blatche. I don’t know how Sean Williams has been doing in practice, but you need to give him a chance to stop him. Instead, Lawrence Frank just sat on his hands while he watched Blatche embarrass Yi and Najera.
The offense generally looked clunky tonight too. It seems that this offense only works when your team is hitting jump shots (the threat off of screens isn’t there if the Nets shooters aren’t making the shots). We were running the same sets over and over, despite them not working…over and over. Something that I have noticed is that we are running the same sort of sets with CDR instead of Vince. Now CDR is a great scorer, but he is no Vince Carter, and we shouldn’t be running double screens for him as the only option. This team has a lot of quick guards who can get into the lane, but it seems like Lawrence Frank making the correct calls (I don’t even know if he has the correct calls) to take advantage of the Nets strengths. It is 3 games in and I miss Brian Hill already.
Key Plays
(The time of these plays are going to be vague because the notebook I keep with me got thrown across the room when Arenas hit that buzzer beater. I was too lazy to pick it up)
25 seconds, First Quarter
Terrence Williams showed why he can be a special player in this league on this play. Crashing the boards hard off the weak-side on a shot attempt, Terrence Williams took off, basically stole the ball from Josh Boone and Brandon Haywood, and finished all in one motion with one hand. Pretty sweet.
0 seconds, First Quarter
A little miscommunication by the Nets (Najera ended up pushing Williams trying to get him to Arenas) gave Gilbert Arenas an open look from 40. Usually this doesn’t matter, but with Gilbert Arenas it most certainly does. He drilled it effectively stealing the momentum from the Nets after Terrence Williams big dunk.
9 seconds, Second Quarter
In another brilliant Lawrence Frank substitution, he took out Courtney Lee and replaced him with Terrence Williams. Why? Because he probably wanted to defend DeShawn Stevenson full court with him. The problem? Terrence Williams allowed him to go coast to coast and make a lay-up at the buzzer. I don’t even want to start to try to figure out that move. My head hurts enough.
Other Bullet Points:
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