Nets Are Scorching

Brook Lopez has been a monster this year, that is for sure, but if you wanted to nit-pick, you could say that he has struggled in the second half.  There has been a noticeable drop-off in Brook’s second half scoring when compared to his first half scoring.  A lot of it has to do with lack of execution, but some of it is just circumstance.

To figure out some stuff what’s different from the first half to the second, we are going to look at some screen shots (these clips are all from the Nets-Cavs game where Brook put up 20 in the first half and 2 in the second.  I noticed a lot of the same things in other games though).  The first thing that I noticed is team’s usually don’t put their big man on Brook unless he is a solid defender, early in games.  Teams usually want to prevent their starting centers from getting in early foul trouble (like what happened early in the Laker game.  They put Bynum on him early, and he spent much of the game in foul trouble).  The Nets and Brook take advantage of this a lot.

The next thing is the lack of execution.  The key to preventing double teams from arriving early is movement.  When players move without the ball, defenders have to stay focused on them, and it is hard to double down on the big man when you don’t know where your man is.    This being a relatively young team, they tend to lose focus every once in a while.  This loss of focus usually happens in the second half.  When you start the game, you usually execute to perfection because the coach’s speech is still fresh in their mind.

The final reason for Brook’s drop-off in the second half is that the Nets’ have been behind by double-digits in most of these games.  When teams come from behind like that, they usually don’t throw the ball into the post.  They try to run and gun and tend to jack up threes which is what the Nets tend to do.  Also, a few times, Kiki has pulled Brook in the middle of the fourth quarter because the game was out of reach.  Not being on the court hurts his production.

Let’s look at the Cavs game:

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Who says that a good benching doesn’t send a message?

While the Nets as a team have continued to struggle with their field goal percentage, Terrence Williams has seen a dramatic turnaround in his offensive efficiency since his two game benching earlier this month after being late to a practice, and “tweeting” about his lack of playing time and his desires to be playing elsewhere in the NBA. While I would have doled out a little more punishment to TWill, especially after he mouthed off to a few reporters when they asked him about his benching, the rookie out of Louisville seems to have received the message and is listening to his coaches more – especially regarding the idea of him taking less outside shots and taking it more aggressively to the hoop.

“Everybody has strengths and weaknesses,” said Kiki Vandeweghe at practice yesterday. “What you do during games is you try to go to your strengths. Terrence is very athletic, and he attacks the basket well. That’s his strength. Practice time is for working on your weaknesses, but in games, you go to your strengths. That’s a strength. So we would like him to keep attacking.”

For the season, TWill’s is still taking about 59 percent of his field goal attempts from 10-feet out and further, but that’s after a very definitive shift in Williams’ approach that started on December 11, after he was put back into the rotation by Kiki against the Indiana Pacers. In that game, Williams was 2-4 from the field, including a 70-foot three-point attempt at the end of a quarter, and only took 1 other shot from beyond 15-feet. In the following games against the Hawks, Williams was 8-14 for 18 points, and was 2-5 from beyond 15-feet. Last week against Utah, Williams was 6-10, only taking two shots from beyond 15-feet (missing them both).

The end results have been positive for Williams. While his playing time has see-sawed a bit from game to game (he barely played Saturday against the Lakers), Williams is shooting a robust 56 percent in his last six games and approximately 68 percent of his field goal attempts have come near the rim. This is the same player who shot 36 percent in November, and started off the Kiki Vandeweghe era by going 2-12 against the Bobcats (including 0-6 outside of 10-feet) and 0-5 two days later against the Knicks (0-3 outside of 10-feet). It was during the Knicks game that Kiki initially benched Williams, who then went on to tweet about his playing time, while telling reporters that he wasn’t about to change what has worked for him as a player.

It’s a good thing Williams got over his pig-headishness, because he’s starting to reflect a competent NBA rotation player, and the less he worries about his outside shot, the more he can focus on doing some of the things that made him a lottery pick – namely being able to score, rebound, and pass in ways that help his team out, not his final stat sheet.

A translation of a recent Mikhail Prokhorov interview regarding his ownership plans for the Nets.  Good work by Nets Daily.

A court ruling of yet another rejected lawsuit by Brooklyn opponents: “If every change were to be viewed as a new plan so as to trigger anew each mandated review process, no development plan could ever reach final approval — let alone ultimate completion,” the ruling read. “The MTA had a rational basis for continuing to use the 2005 appraisal rather than ordering a new one in 2009.”

The great Ben Couch is at practice yesterday and talks about the return of Yi Jianlian: Vandeweghe has been among Yi’s biggest supporters since trading for him two summers ago, valuing the 22-year-old’s mid-range shooting and rebounding. In three full games before being injured, Yi had averaged 11.6 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks. All signs point toward an on-court appearance Wednesday, none moreso than Yi banging throughout practice and then running fluidly and fast during full-court conditioning drills.

An article that talks about betting on the Nets/Wolves game Wednesday has this to say about Brook Lopez: Brook Lopez (19.5 PPG, 9.6 RPG, 20.94 PER) is a nice young piece on the inside, but he’s really just a more-skilled version of Joakim Noah or a rich man’s Robin Lopez. Double team Lopez, and you pretty much have the Nets’ offense figured out.

Video from Borough Hall in Brooklyn, where the Nets gave out toys to children: