Nets Are Scorching

The Nets were literally scorching to start the game, leading 33-19 after the first quarter, but the Mavericks methodically picked them apart over the second and third quarters, and were able to withstand a late Nets surge, to beat New Jersey 96-87 in Dallas tonight.

• The Nets were shooting close to 53 percent at halftime and held on to an 8-point lead against a Dallas team that had won 12 in a row entering tonight. But 19 percent shooting in the third, where they were outscored by the Mavericks 31-15, put New Jersey in a deep hole entering the fourth that they could never climb out of, despite getting as close as two points down the home stretch.
• Terrence Williams keeps topping himself in the month of March, putting together another career game with 18 points, 13 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a blocked shot.
• Devin Harris had a solid night offensively against his old team with 21 points and 7 assists on 7-14 shooting, but turned the ball over 6 times.
• Kris Humphries had 13 points and 8 rebounds off the bench, while playing some solid defense against former teammate Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk had a particularly awful night, finishing with 12 points on 3-16 shooting.
• Jason Kidd finished with 20 points and 9 assists, and was 5-8 from three-point land.
• Brook Lopez and Courtney Lee each had a quiet night, finishing with 10 points each. Lopez picked up his 5th foul at the end of the third, and wasn’t seen again until about 2 minutes left in the game.

The last time the Nets played the Mavericks, it wasn’t pretty.  At all.  The Mavs might be missing a fair amount (Jason Terry and Erik Dampier are definitely out) of their pieces tonight, but Jason Kidd is still there.  Before we talk to the game, I figured this was sort of Mavericks related and interesting.  According to Wayne Winston (former stats guy for the Mavericks – see?  Related) the Nets are on pace for 11 wins according to his rankings (more on that Friday).  Wayne Winston is a pretty smart guy and these projections are pretty well respected, so take it for what it’s worth.

Now moving forward to tonight, the Nets are going to have to play a perfect to get a win tonight.  They can’t do the little things wrong like take the foul-to-give early or going for steals that trigger fast breaks for the opponents.  Onto the lineups…

Devin Harris vs. Jason Kidd

Last year Devin Harris got the best of Jason Kidd (and the Mavs), so it looked like the Nets won the trade.  This year the Nets are awful and the Mavs are good (and there was that blowout game in New Jersey) and now the Mavs are thought to have won the deal.  My opinion?  We still don’t know who we are getting with the Mavs pick, so the deal is incomplete and since it was a longterm deal for the Nets, it is way too early to judge.

Advantage:  Jason Kidd

Courtney Lee vs. Caron Butler

Courtney Lee has been playing out of this world as of late, and while I don’t think he will average 30 points a game for the rest of his career, he is starting to show what Rod Thorn saw in him that he was willing to give up Ryan Anderson  for him.  Combine his scoring now with the ability to play lock down defense, and you have a solid starter and a solid piece moving forward.

Advantage:  Caron Butler

Trenton Hassell vs. Shawn Marion

Trenton Hassell is probably going to start again, but we probably will be seeing a ton of Terrence Williams tonight, because I don’t think Hassell will be able to hang with Marion’s athleticism (even though that has declined through the years).

Advantage:  Shawn Marion

Josh Boone vs. Dirk

Josh Boone might start (he did have a solid game against the Grizzlies), but I don’t think he is going to successfully be able to hang with Dirk, which means you might see a lot of Kris Humphries.  While Humphries has struggled on the offensive end as of late, he still continues to work on the offensive end.  It is going to be fun to watch Dirk and Humphries go at it, and Humphries might be able to use his experience in Dallas to his advantage.

Advantage:  Dirk

Brook Lopez vs. Brendan Haywood

When I saw Brendan Haywood got traded to the Western Conference, I was happy because this means Brook Lopez gets to face him less than when he was in the East.  Brendan Haywood had the two best defensive performances against Brook (in my opinion), and he might have another tough night if his teammates don’t make shots.

Advantage:  Push

I certainly understand why a lot of Nets fans are down on Yi Jianlian, and I’ve certainly taken my fair share of shots at him this season, but I also think people need to be fair and realistic about how much Yi’s individual performances actually affect the team overall. When Yi left Sunday’s game against the Knicks with an ankle injury, there were a few comments about how much better the Nets played once Yi left – never mind the fact that in the first quarter, EVERYONE on the Nets was stinking up the joint, regardless of who was on the floor.

Here are the facts: looking at the simple rating for each player on the Nets roster – which is a statistic found at 82games.com that takes into account the team’s offensive and defensive performance when a specific players is on and off the court – you can determine that Yi does have a negative impact on the team when he plays. However, there are many other players on the roster, who currently get significant minutes, that have a more detrimental effect on the team than Yi.

According to 82games, Yi has played 40 percent of the team’s minutes this season. Yi is putting up a Player Efficiency Rating of 13.8 in those minutes, while opposing players matched up against Yi have a PER of 22.5, good for a differential of -8.7. Meanwhile, when Yi plays, the team’s +/- is -7, and when he’s off the floor, their +/- is -13.4, good for a differential of +6.4. When you add these two differentials together, you get Yi’s simple rating of -2.7.

Yi’s simple rating is sixth best on the Nets roster, which is more of a statement of how bad the Nets are (shocking).  Only two players have a positive simple rating, Brook Lopez and Keyon Dooling.  The other players ahead of Yi include Courtney Lee, and two players who have a relatively small sample size, Bobby Simmons and Sean Williams.

So that puts Devin Harris (-2.8), Kris Humphries (-3.5), Terrence Williams (-3.7) and Chris Douglas-Roberts (-3.8) all behind Yi in terms of simple rating, meaning the team is overall playing worse when those players are on the court when compared to the team’s performance when Yi is on the floor. Of those four players, I think the one that is most worth picking out for the sake of this post is Humphries. While I’ve been relatively impressed with Hump’s aggressiveness and attitude since he came over from Dallas (and thankful to have him over Najera), these numbers demonstrate that he’s not necessarily a better full-time option at the four than Yi.  Just based on some observations, I think Humphries has many of the same issues as Yi – occasionally soft on defense, a penchant for bad shots and inappropriate times – so the section of the fan-base that believes Hump MUST start instead of Yi may want to look at the numbers to determine if it really makes a difference for the Nets.

Nets fans need to go a little easier on Yi. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe the Nets absolutely must upgrade at PF next season and that the Yi as a starter experiment should come to the end.  But the Nets aren’t bad solely because of Yi, or even primarily because of Yi. The Nets are bad because they are a bad team, and the 7-wins they’ve accumulate is proof enough that their issues run beyond one player.

Sebastian provides some of his expert insight of some mistakes the Nets made against the Grizzlies on Monday, over at his NBA Playbook site.

In a roundtable at SI.com, NBA writers discuss which downtrodden Eastern Conference team that would buy stock in if they had the opportunity, and naturally, the Nets are brought up.

Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com talks Brooklyn.

David Biderman of the Wall Street Journal kicks the Nets when they’re down, but then offers some support: By now you’ve realized that the New Jersey Nets aren’t just a sad-sack basketball team, they’re profoundly horrible. But even with a 7-56 record, there are several recent sports teams that were even worse.

Just how talented is Dallas? As Al Iannazzone notes, even without Jason Terry, Erick Dampier, Brendan Haywood and Tim Thomas expected to play tonight, they still have Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Caron Butler and Shawn Marion to lean on.

And that Jason Kidd fella is still a very productive PG, as Julian Garcia writes.

Brooklyn Paper with more on the designers of the Barclays Arena.

People are apparently buying Knicks season tickets at the fastest pace ever because they believe they’re going to sign LeBron James.