Nets Are Scorching

The Nets made it interesting in the final minutes, but the Oklahoma City Thunder won a game that they led throughout, beating the Nets 104-102 in OKC tonight.

• The Nets got some solid offensive contributions from their bench tonight, with Jarvis Hayes sinking 16 points on 6-13 shooting, Keyon Dooling  with 15 points on 4-5 shooting and Terrence Williams with 14 points (and 6 rebounds) on 6-13 shooting.
• Devin Harris had a decent game offensively, scoring 19 points and collecting 8 assists, but was 8-20 from the field.
• OKC was led by Kevin Durant, who finished with 32 points and 11 rebounds. He was seconded by Jeff Green who had 27 points (20 in first half), 6 rebounds and 3 steals.
• Courtney Lee, battling a wrist injury, was struggling all night, scoring 6 points on 2-9 shooting.
• The Nets had 6 turnovers in the first quarter, but finished with 12 for the game.

Not a lot of time to get this up, so quickly to the lineups…

Devin Harris vs. Russell Westbrook

Watching these two guys go at it is going to be fun.  Westbrook uses his athleticism and Devin his speed, but both guys are fantastic at getting into the paint, and both are a little more scoring oriented than your average point guard.  We could find ourselves in a situation where both guys just start going at each other trying to one-up the other.  That could get very entertaining.

Advantage:  Push

Courtney Lee vs. Thabo Sefolosha

According to Al Iannazzone Courtney Lee has a sprained thumb on his shooting hand, but he won’t be missing any time. That is probably what contributed to his first bad game in quite a while (4-12 shooting).  Tonight, he is going against a pretty good defender in Thabo, but he won’t produce much in terms of scoring.

Advantage:  Push

Trenton Hassell vs. Kevin Durant

If it was any other team, I’d be pushing to see Terrence Williams starting here, but Hassell is a better defender and that is what you need when going against Kevin Durant.  Durant is going to make shots, and he is going to get points in transition, so if you want to have a chance against the Thunder, you are going to have to keep him off of the foul line.  If the Nets do that, they have a chance.

Advantage:  Kevin Durant

Kris Humphries vs. Jeff Green

Boone is a game time decision with a sprained back, so you will probably see Kris Humphries starting (and if not, he will be getting a bulk of the minutes).  Green is a guy who can score inside and out, but I think Humphries will be able to handle him, as he did a fantastic job of defending Dirk last time.  Humphries needs to contribute on the offensive end though, he is creating too many wasted possessions with his missed mid-range jumpers as of late.

Advantage:  Jeff Green

Brook Lopez vs. Nenad Krstic

Brook Lopez struggled defending Nenad last time out, as he floated on the outside and knocked down a few jumpers.  I think the Nets should counter by going inside and trying to get Krstic in foul trouble early.

Advantage:  Brook Lopez

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Wayne Winston, but the man is one of the best sports analytics people in the business.  In fact until recently he was doing statistical analysis for the Dallas Mavericks.  Since he stopped doing his thing for the Mavericks, Winston published a book called Mathletics (where he breaks down advanced statistics for a few different sports) and he now runs a blog where he does his thing.  Recently, over at WayneWinston.com Winston posted his “Post All-Star Rankings.”  It was interesting to see that according to Winston, the Nets haven’t been the worst team in the NBA since the break.  Hell, they weren’t even second worst.  The Nets ranked 23rd in Winston’s rankings, with the Knicks ranking last (awesome).  Let’s allow Winston to explain his rankings:

In the three weeks since the all star break here is a summary of how well each NBA team has played.  For example, the Magic have played 10.65 points better than average. The Magic have played 2.38 points better than average on offense and 8.26 points better than average on defense. Note the Nets have really improved and the Knicks are now the league’s worst team. Kudos to the unsung Bucks, who have played great. These numbers are adjusted for strength of schedule. Makes you think that  a Lakers-Cavs final series is not inevitable!

Now, let’s look at the Nets specifically.  The Nets have an overall ranking of -4.12119, meaning they play about 4 points worse than their opponents.  Breaking it down to both sides of the ball, the Nets have been playing -4.29861 on the offensive end, but on the flip side, the Nets have been better than their opponents on defense.  Now it hasn’t been by much (only 0.17742 better), but with the way the Nets played defense, any kind of better is good news.

If you have been watching Nets games, you know the Nets have been playing better since the break.  With Brook Lopez continuing to dominate (up until the last two games where he faced real tough defenders), Courtney Lee finally breaking out of his funk, Terrence Williams starting to get it, and Devin Harris returning to last year’s all-star form.  I have to echo Mark’s sentiments from yesterday:

So you tell me: can the worst team in basketball honestly be expected to accomplish all this in a given night? After being legitimately angry with this team and organization for the better part of the last four months, I can honestly say I now sympathize with these guys. Between the young talent of guys like Lopez, Harris, Williams and Lee, and some veteran good-guys like Keyon Dooling, Hayes and Hassell, these Nets need to find a way to get out of this discussion as being among the worst ever, because they just don’t belong there.

This team is just not the worst team in NBA history.  They don’t do things that bad teams do (most of the time), and they go out and compete.  Hopefully they can come away with 3 more wins.

Sebastian was talking Brooklyn over at the Daily Dime last night.

Our good friend Henry Abbott at the TrueHoop mothership asks what Brooklyn native and renown Knicks fan Spike Lee is going to do once the Nets officially move in.

Al Iannazzone depicts the daily beat writers struggle when talking about Bruce Ratner’s victory lap yesterday: As a colleague said to me last night, it’s wrong that Ratner goes on these shows when these major things happen and doesn’t talk to the regular guys covering the team. We haven’t spoken to Ratner since last April.

Terrence Williams is ready for the grown-up table: Maturity is a word mentioned often. Vandeweghe said Williams’ “maturity level is rising.” Even Williams admits he’s grown up some and is concentrating on playing.

Here’s some video of CEO Brett Yormark on Fox Business News yesterday: