Nets Are Scorching

The Sixers vs. the Nets.  That is going to be a whole lot of awfulness on one basketball court tonight.  While most of you guys probably are going to read something about the Nets and how they compared to the 72-73 Sixers team (the one whose record the Nets are trying to avoid).  Let’s focus on the Nets for a minute, though.  How bad have the Nets been, well, as Matt McHale from Basketbawful points out, they are 30-70 since Devin Harris said those famous words “We knew we were going to be a playoff team” after the team’s 11-8 start last season.  That’s bad…onto the lineups (quick ones today…sorry guys).

Devin Harris vs. Lou Williams

While Devin Harris didn’t play yesterday, I expect him to play tonight as this is as good a chance as any to get win #8.  Lou Williams and Devin Harris are somewhat similar players.  Williams isn’t a true point guard, but more of a scorer first, the same with Devin Harris.  However, Devin has better point guard skills, he has better handle and better court vision which allows for his teams to get involved.  I understand why the Sixers are trying to turn Lou Williams into a PG, but to me he just doesn’t have to court vision to be a good one (4.1 APG out of your starting PG isn’t any good).

Advantage:  Devin Harris

Courtney Lee vs. Jrue Holiday

Courtney Lee has the size on Jrue Holiday (Holiday is 6’1″ while Lee is 6’5″), and he should be able to get off his shot with ease.  This is a good thing since Lee has been shooting well as of late, so more good looks = more points.

Advantage:  Courtney Lee

Trenton Hassell vs. Andre Iguodala

In my opinion, this is the only position where the Sixers have a clear cut advantage.  Hassell is still starting (though with Terrence Williams playing so well, his minutes may decline), and Andre Iguodala has the athleticism just to blow by Hassell every time.  It is going to be interesting to watch Iguodala go up against Terrence Williams.

Advantage:  Andre Iguodala

Josh Boone vs. Elton Brand

Elton Brand was a great player, but the injuries really slowed him down.

Advantage:  Push

Brook Lopez vs. Samuel Dalembert

Dalembert is a terrific defender and a shot blocker, but I think Brook Lopez can use his size to his advantage here.  If he is able to get his body into Dalembert’s he can negate his length and jumping ability.  Allowing him to knock down easy buckets.

Advantage:  Brook Lopez

AP Photo/Bill Kostrun

Hoopinion – Peachtree Hoops – View from the Couch

From the onset, last night’s game just seemed like one of those nights that was going to be totally forgettable for the New Jersey Nets. The Atlanta Hawks are everything the Nets are not: athletic, deep and offensively efficient. The last two times these teams met, the Nets lost by a combined 53 points. Then consider that the Nets were without the services of Devin Harris last night, who looked probable earlier in the day yesterday despite having a respiratory infection, but obviously was not in any kind of game shape. So the Nets were throwing a lineup out there consisting of Keyon Dooling, Courtney Lee, Trenton Hassell, Josh Boone and Brook Lopez. Umm, yeah. I guess I should be thankful the Nets only lost by 24 and not by 50.

Even when the game was tied at 22 in the first quarter, it was difficult for me to get excited. The Nets were only shooting 35 percent, and were in a close-game early because the Hawks matched their ineptitude by throwing up a 36.4 percent first quarter. Given what we know about the Hawks and what we know about the Nets, it was a bad first quarter for one team, and par for the course for the other. We did get the highlight of two consecutive free throws made by Josh Boone, which means someone should be doing a temperature check in hell. Actually, it’s a little unfair of me to rip on Boone after last night. He finished with a career high in rebounds with 20 rebounds and added 13 points to boot. That’s a double-double for Boone if I did my math correctly. He looked energized, especially in the first half and this may have been the best game I’ve seen Boone play in three seasons.

The problem is, the Nets need other players to perform for them to even stand a chance against most teams, no less a team that gives them match-up nightmares like Atlanta. You could just feel the foundation starting to shake towards the end of the first quarter when Terrence Williams – playing point guard point guard for the first time in a long while, and not point forward – turned the ball over on an 8-second violation. It set the tone for an out of sync second quarter where the Nets only scored 17 and Jamal Crawford scored 15 (and the Hawks 33 total). The Nets were going to need someone to have a stand-out offensive performance from at least two guys tonight and barely got one. Brook Lopez was solid, finishing with 21 points on 8-15 shooting, but didn’t do much else to help the team and may have been involved with the most bizarre offensive foul call I’ve ever seen when he set a screen for Keyon Dooling on Mike Bibby in the third quarter, and Bibby proceeded to jump into Lopez, grab his shoulder, and still draw a foul on the big man. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the refs botched the call there. But they probably looked at the game they were reffing and figured it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.

A few more thoughts after the jump:

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In his game recap from last night, Julian Garcia talks extensively with Dale Schlueter, coach of the 72-73 Philadelphia 76ers.

Dave D’Alessandro captures my sentiments perfectly about the end to last night’s game: Terrence Williams waited until there was 13.9 seconds left in the game to show that he had had enough. Of course, the Hawks were asking for it: They were up 23 and pressing in the backcourt with 34 seconds left, which is a good way for winners to announce that they don’t care much about basketball decorum.

Dave D. also talks to the players about the importance of 10: “I want to get three wins more than anything,” Courtney Lee said. “We don’t talk about it, but I think it’s on everybody’s mind. You can see there’s a sense of urgency about it, because it comes up a lot. And it’s going to come up a lot more if we don’t get some wins soon.”

Rod Thorn is watching lots of college basketball: “I have watched more games than I normally would,” Thorn said. “I watched all the tournament games last week until the power went out.”

Would Knicks forward Al Harrington be interested in coming to the Nets?

Keyon Dooling wants another chance with the Nets after this season.

Devin Harris talks about Avery Johnson coaching and John Wall at PG over at Hoops World.

It was just another Nets/Hawks match-up, as Atlanta blew away New Jersey for the third straight time this season, winning 108-84 at the Izod Center tonight. It was the 14th consecutive loss at home for the Nets, who now have 15 games left to secure three victories to avoid all-time infamy.

• It was a career night for Josh Boone who finished with 13 points and 20 rebounds. He even sunk two free throws in the first quarter.
• Brook Lopez finished with 21 points on 8-15 shooting, but only 4 rebounds.
• Nice night off the bench for Terrence Williams, who finished with 15 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists. He picked up a flagrant foul at the end of the game which I don’t blame him for. Want me to explain? Read “Thoughts on the Game” tomorrow.
• But that was it for the Nets, highlight-wise. They shot 38 percent for the game, turned the ball over 16 times and only scored 17 points in the second quarter (while allowing 33).
• Jamal Crawford was unstoppable off the bench, scoring 25 points on 11-18 shooting. They also got a strong performance from Marvin Williams (15 points, 5 rebounds) and Al Horford (15 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists).

The Nets have been run out of the building by the Hawks twice already, however the Hawks are going to be without Joe Johnson tonight.  Rookie guard Jeff Teague will be starting with Mike Bibby sliding to the 2-guard spot.  As for the Nets in terms of health, Devin Harris missed practice yesterday because of a sickness, but he said he was going to try to play through it.  Onto the lineups…

Devin Harris vs. Jeff Teague

With Harris being sick, expect to see a lot of Keyon Dooling and Terrence Williams playing the point.  If you had to pick a night this was going to happen though, tonight is a good one.  You have a rookie guard starting while Joe Johnson is out.

Advantage:  Devin Harris

Courtney Lee vs. Mike Bibby

I expect for Courtney to have a big game tonight.  Bibby isn’t the best defender in the world, and Lee seems to have shaken that hand injury that caused him to struggle for two games.

Advantage:  Push

Trenton Hassell vs. Marvin Williams

Marvin Williams hasn’t been playing that great, but he is going to be going up against Trenton Hassell…so yeah…he might be due for a big one tonight.

Advantage:  Marvin Williams

Josh Boone vs. Josh Smith

You saw what a guy like Luis Scola can do when Josh Boone is covering him, and no disrespect to Scola, but Josh Smith is going to create havoc.  He is more athletic than Boone, which will lead to a lot of baskets on the inside (or worst, fouls on Brook Lopez).  The only hope the Nets have against Smith is if he starts settling for outisde jumpers, but he hasn’t done it a ton this year.

Advantage:  Josh Smith

Brook Lopez vs. Al Horford

This might be the only reason to watch the game tonight.  To see these two young and talented centers go at it.  It will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Advantage:  Push

Brett LaGree from the Hawks TrueHoop site Hoopinion is back for a quick final round of Bloggers Talk where I ask him about his thoughts on Atlanta’s chances in the playoffs.

NAS: Do you get the sense, especially with Joe Johnson’s FA status, that this is the last chance for this core group of guys to go on some kind of meaningful run in April/May?

It’s weird, in that, because no one (Joe Johnson maybe included) knows what Joe Johnson is even likely to decide to do in free agency either we’re seeing this group for the last time (I think it’ll take at least two significant trades to reconstitute this team if he leaves.) or we’re going to see this group for a long time because there won’t be any money left over if he re-signs.

I know the Hawks would have their MLE I just don’t think they’d use it.

NAS: After the past two years of playoff basketball for the Hawks, what would you consider an “acceptable” ending to the season?

It’s unreasonable to expect the Hawks to beat either Cleveland or Orlando in a seven-game series so getting to the Conference Finals would be a tremendous achievement. Playing a competitive series against either of those two would be acceptable. Especially competing against the Magic, who are both better than the Hawks in absolute terms and a terrible matchup for the Hawks.

Before he was drafted last June, the one word that always seemed to be associated with Terrence Williams was “versatile.” He had the size and muscle to be an option at small forward, but his ball handling and passing ability made him an option to run the offense and create match-up problems as a point forward. To demonstrate his versatility, he had a double-double in his first professional game in October, and three more before the end of November. But his up and down shooting marred portions of his rookie season, and some off-the-court attitude issues cut into his playing time. So, while the following might sound like an obvious statement, let me preface it by saying that I’m ecstatic that TWill has gotten his act together to be in a position for me to be so obvious:

Terrence Williams does a lot of things really, really well.

For the month of March, Williams has averaged 14 points, 4.9 assists and 6.7 rebounds in about 30 minutes of playing time. It’s been a stunning turnaround for the rookie who some were saying early-on was bordering on becoming a bust. Instead, TWill has forced his way onto the court during critical end-of-game situations, primarily because he can do so many things to help his team win at three different positions.

Let’s start with some passing numbers. At the beginning of the season, I used to pick apart Williams for getting too “cute” with his passes, and underestimating the speed of the NBA game. In the past six weeks, TWill seems to be grasping this idea, and while he still makes mistakes, he’s also distributed some of the prettiest dimes I’ve ever seen from a player his size. When looking at how he stacks up against other SFs in the league (which is still his most natural position in my opinion), TWill’s 16.3 assist ratio is good for 6^th at the position. Against other rookies, TWill’s ratio places him 10^th, but he’s the only non-PG in the top 10, according to ESPN’s statistics.

As for his rebounding – which I think might be his strongest skill – TWill’s rebound rate of 11 is good for 9^th at the SF position (and tied with LeBron James, who as I’m reminded often, is built like a linebacker). He is comfortably the best non PF/C rebounder on the Nets’ roster.

The one knock against TWill continues to be his shooting percentage, but he even has a strong suit there. While it’s still a relatively small sample, Williams as demonstrated a real penchant for the corner three, shooting 12-22 (55 percent) from that spot on the floor. As I’ve ranted on about in the past, the Nets were one of the most effective teams from the corner last year, and I think they would have gotten off to a better start if they had a healthy Jarvis Hayes to hit from the corner, along with a more confident Courtney Lee. As it stands, Williams may want to hide out in the corner a bit more on offense as well, but he may be too busy helping his team by running the offense and grabbing rebounds to focus on that statistic right now.

Terrence Williams (more on him later) has some sage-like advice for himself in the latest from Dave D’Alessandro: “I learned you have to keep your mouth shut,” he said. “Honestly, that’s it. Because you get further with silence than you do speaking out or acting out. The lesson taught to me was to pay attention to other guys, and learn from them. I really wasn’t ready for that.”

Fred Kerber with some more TWill money quotes:  “I want to get every rebound and every assist in the game. But one, I don’t play the whole game and two, I don’t think Brook [Lopez] would let me get every rebound,” Williams said. “Points will come . . . but assists and rebounds, that’s what I have to do.”

The Nets need three more wins to avoid infamy, but they’ll likely enter tonight’s game with Atlanta without Devin Harris.

NetsDaily continues its breakdown of all things Mikhail Prokhorov.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a little profile on Jay-Z’s business success.