After the Nets became the Washington Generals to the Miami Heat’s Harlem Globetrotters earlier this season, the team seemed to be rallying behind a mantra of toughness and no layups. Then Devin Harris horsecollared Blake Griffin Monday night and was ejected for the foul. Fortunately for the Nets and Harris, the league won’t suspend him. Still, the play has Avery Johnson clarifying the “toughness” mantra:
“I want hard, legal fouls,” Johnson said. “If it’s a hard foul where the guy went to the deck, maybe we’re there to help him back up, and it’s legal, it’s not a flagrant, then he goes and shoots two free throws. That’s what I want.”
I don’t think Harris was purposely trying to hurt Griffin, but it wasn’t a smart foul. I’ve always maintained that if you want to prevent teams from dunking on you, you toughen up the defense. You don’t take a swing at them when they already have you beat. Harris, who has been on the wrong end of some of those fouls, should know better.
Peter Vescey thinks the Nets are no longer the “front runners” for Carmelo Anthony’s services, and while Vescey’s credibility is always questionable, on the off-chance that he’s right, as a proud member of the “You can’t trade Favors for ‘Melo” camp, I’d like to point to a Howard Beck piece in the New York Times this morning, that cobbles together some of the best points from around the internet debunking this notion that Anthony is the “elite” player a team like the Nets (or Knicks) needs.
Keep in mind that Beck’s Anthony piece is written in terms of how he would or would not help the Knicks, but I think all of the points made can be applied to the Nets except for one specific caveat: the Nets have more to lose by acquiring Anthony if they sacrifice a potential cornerstone in Favors.
Here are some of the numbers Beck runs:
About 61 percent of Anthony’s field goal attempts were contested, among the worst in the league of players who were tracked.
His career field goal percentage (.459) and three-point percentage (.316) are both below league average.
Despite averaging 19.3 shots per game, he only racks up about three assists per game.
In short, per an NBA scout:
“Carmelo needs the ball in his hand all the time to be a factor,” the scout said, concluding, “Carmelo is not the immediate answer.”
And Beck does a good job summarizing what ‘Melo’s critics have been saying since these trade rumors started to surface (again substitute Knicks for Nets):
Anthony is an elite scorer but a below-average playmaker and a mostly indifferent defender. He can provide 25 points a night and a go-to option in the final minutes of a tight game, but he would not give the Knicks what they need most: a player who elevates everyone around him.
Maybe Derrick Favors turns into a very good NBA basketball player. Maybe he doesn’t. The question that I keep running in my head is if Favors’ potential is worth sacrificing for a player that a growing number of analysts are saying has benefitted from being a volume scorer, not a difference maker.
For me, this doesn’t happen often. I like to think of games as entire stretches, rather than singular moments. But there are exceptions, and this is one of them. In the Nets-Clippers game, there was one possession that really defined the Nets in a positive way, a possession that never would have happened last season.
With fourteen seconds left in the first half & right out of a timeout, the Nets held a 52-44 lead and the ball. The possession began with the entire offense spread and Ben Uzoh – making his NBA debut – holding the ball at the top. The first thing that came to my mind was, “Great. The Nets are going to run the ‘let’s watch the PG try a fancy move and shoot an awful shot to end the quarter like every other bad team does’ offense now.” That’s exactly what it looked like, and that’s exactly what the Clippers must have thought, too.
But I was wrong. The Clippers were, too. & they paid their complacency.
All of a sudden, the Nets began to run in motion. Kris Humphries faked a pick & cut directly to the hoop, drawing Travis Outlaw’s defender. Uzoh began the slash that so many point guards attempt poor shots out of. As this was happening, Jordan Farmar played a little Princeton offense, cutting backdoor behind Al-Farouq Aminu. As this happened, Derrick Favors ran towards the rim, drawing his defender in as well. Farmar received a backdoor pass from Uzoh, quickly faked as if he was going to shoot, and passed out to a wide open Travis Outlaw in the corner. Outlaw knocked down the 3 to give the Nets an 11-point lead.
The tastiest part of all? This harmonious, synchronized play was rolled out just as the Clippers announcers were discussing how it was impossible for a new team, so early in the season, to gel; to be in “perfect harmony” and “perfect synchronicity.” The phrase “delicious irony” just doesn’t do it justice.
It’s the small things that separate this team from last year. Effective, drawn-up plays out of timeouts to end a half. Plays where all five guys matter. An offensive identity. A coach that preaches defense and can get his star point guard on his star track. That star point guard laying a ferocious hit to an opposing player. (I’m not condoning violence – far from it – but that aggressiveness makes a difference.) Having competent forwards at both positions. Having solid backups who define their game by what the team needs.
Let’s be bold. Some games, the Nets are just supposed to win. I know this sounds weird, since the Nets weren’t expected to win anything last season, but these are the games where the bells of “It’s All New” ring and ring and ring. When a team isn’t playing the Orlando Magic or Miami Heat, they tend to look much better than expected. Outside of those 4 games, the Nets are now 4-2. While the competition hasn’t been stellar, these are games that the Nets should win, and down the stretch they’ve been able to execute. Truth be told, in our earlier games this season, I merely hoped for victories; but for the first time in a long while, I actually expected the Nets to win this game outright.
And sure enough, they did.
There were enough obstacles in the way, sure. With a 38-27 lead, Devin Harris clotheslined Blake Griffin on a fast break, leaving Griffin temporarily motionless on the floor. Harris was called for a flagrant-2 and instantly ejected, leaving the Nets without their star point guard for the remainder of the game. The Clippers fought to keep it close, getting the game to within three midway through the fourth quarter. But that didn’t deter this New Jersey Nets team (emphasis on “New”), who fought off the tough Clipper rallies and maintained the lead for the remainder of the game.
What makes this game so appealing was its lack of a top contributor. Almost everyone did something to help the Nets win. Before his ejection, Harris looked like he was priming for another all-star game, with 8 points and 7 assists in just 14 minutes of play. Brook Lopez hit midrange jumper after midrange jumper with ease, and just as I thought he was taking too many, destroyed Jarron Collins in the post on consecutive possessions. Travis Outlaw was blistering hot (see more after the jump), helping the Nets jump out to the halftime lead by scoring eighteen points in the first two quarters. Kris Humphries had another double-double with 13 points & 12 rebounds, and played highly effective defense on last year’s #1 draft pick Blake Griffin. Jordan Farmar may have been the star, though; filling in for the ejected Devin Harris, Farmar ran the offense with the savvy of a seasoned veteran, finishing the game with 15 points, 12 assists, and two steals.
There are still issues. Outside of Humphries, no player on the Nets had more than five rebounds. The Nets still committed 12 turnovers and 28 fouls on the night. But the good from tonight is just too good to ignore – the 60% field goal shooting, 95% free throw shooting, the 32 assists on 43 field goals, the eight blocked shots (without getting blocked once), things like that. Things that winning teams are supposed to do, they did. Last night, that’s what set them apart from the Clippers. Let’s hope they keep setting themselves apart from here on out.
Tonight, the Nets kick off their four-game road trip against the 1-9 Los Angeles Clippers. The Nets are playing the Clippers for the first time this season, and they’ll do it without Terrence Williams, who is still injured. Chris Kaman & Baron Davis are both out for the Clippers with knee & ankle injuries, and Randy Foye is also questionable. The Nets are hoping to kick off this road trip with a victory, and the Clippers are the perfect team to do that against.
Here are a few things to look out for:
Winning one out west. The Nets have dropped 23 consecutive games when visiting Western Conference teams, and this game provides an excellent opportunity to snap that streak. The Clippers have looked terrible in their first ten games and are not a formidable opponent. Hopefully the Nets are able to take advantage and move past that ugly streak.
The power forward battle. Pseudo-rookie and #1 draft pick of 2009 Blake Griffin is already the best player on the depleted Clippers roster, and he’ll be looking to have a big game against a questionable rotation of Kris Humphries, Troy Murphy, and Derrick Favors. I’d really like to see a lot of matchups between Griffin and Favors down low – Griffin’s a good offensive player, but Favors is taller (& longer – Blake’s wingspan was measured at a surprisingly small 6’11.25″ compared to Favors’s 7’4″) and should be able to deter a lot of his shots. Besides, who doesn’t want to see a rookie matchup between these two?
Continued dominance by Devin Harris. Harris has played excellent ball to start the season, but I’m worried that some of it is fluky. After shooting around 42% in his career from 10-15 feet and 39% from 16-23, he’s now shooting 61.5% and 57% from those two spots, respectively. That’s almost assuredly an aberration and not a trend – it’s just too drastic of a jump. He’s certainly been picking his shots well from those ranges, but I hope he doesn’t start to fall back on them exclusively. He needs to be slashing to the rim & looking for shots, contact, and open shooters surrounding the perimeter.
For more coverage of the Los Angeles Clippers, check out ESPN’s TrueHoop affiliate ClipperBlog.
For our second podcast of the season, Danny Savitzky & I talk about the early season, Brook Lopez’s struggles, Devin Harris’s resurgence, Terrence Williams, Derrick Favors, Carmelo Anthony, growing pains, & more. We also give our predictions for the rest of November to close it out.
It’s a stated fact that the Nets move to the Prudential Center in Newark is a temporary one until the Barclays Center in Brooklyn opens. So how do the Nets sell a transitional arena to the buying public? According to a Wall Street Journal article, while the Nets (and the Devils) are constantly trying to innovate ways to sell tickets, they’re eyes remain on the big prize in Brooklyn:
“Unfortunately, New Jersey never gave the team enough support on a consistent basis,” said Fred Mangione, the Nets senior vice president of ticket sales and marketing, though he added, “We market and sell in New Jersey like we’re never leaving.”
and
“It’s all about Brooklyn and it’s all about the building,” said Mr. Mangione, who said the team has commitments for 30 suites, though they have not begun selling regular tickets to the new building. “Yes, the team is there, but it’s just as important for us to pitch the concerts and the boxing and everything else.”
It’s a tricky two-step for the Nets organization. They were wise to get away from the Izod Center, but it’s obviously difficult for them to embrace The Rock, and vice versa. Mangione’s argument that Jersey never embraced the Nets is difficult to counter considering the empty seats even during the team’s playoff run. And even now, getting good seats in Newark is as simple as going to stubhub the day of the game and getting tickets at a very reduced price.
In last night’s 91-90 loss, it was easy to see that the Nets were settling for jumpers against Orlando’s tough interior defense. But one fact you may not know is that the Nets actually only attempted 5 shots at the rim – and didn’t make one. That’s the lowest number of at-the-rim attempts in any game so far this season, and the Nets are also the only team to not make one shot at the rim in any single game. (Devin Harris’s late-game layup is probably he most notable of them all.) Now, it’s only fair to note that Brook Lopez & Devin Harris combined to get to the line 15 times – the only players to get to the free throw line for the Nets, mind you – so a few attempts were certainly lost there, but even so, the average in the NBA is 22.3 attempts per team per game. 5 is a joke of a number.
You could take this two ways. One could argue that despite this glaring weakness, they were still so diverse offensively and were able to find so many different ways to score that they managed only a one-point loss against a top-3 team in the Eastern Conference. Conversely, one could also say that the Nets just got extremely lucky last night, and if there’s a trend away from the rim, the Nets are going to go downhill fast. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle.
As last night’s game agains the Orlando Magic ended with Devin Harris heaving and missing a near half-court shot (and maybe getting fouled by Jameer Nelson on the play? The way the NBA is these days, it’s a call that certainly could have been made) I had to think that this was a game that needs to be stowed near the top of the season’s time capsule. Because even though the Nets lost 91-90, they proved last night that they have the ability to hang with one of the league’s elite teams for a full 48 minutes.
Yes, losses are losses and moral victories are typically for those making excuses for lack of execution, but by taking multiple shots to the chin throughout the night by the Magic, and still finding themselves in the position to come away with the victory is a major step for an organization that’s still rebuilding its image from a horror show that was last year. I know Devin Harris and co. scoff at the ongoing comparisons to last season, but when you play on a team that’s known for barely avoiding the worst record in NBA history, the comparisons are going to continue. Fortunately for Harris and the Nets’ sake, the vast majority of these comparisons are, “wow, aren’t the Nets playing so much better than last year?”
By my count there were three definitive points in this game where the Magic were setting up to close the door, and the Nets came back from the dead on all three occasions – cue the obligatory they would not have done that last season, but guess what, they wouldn’t have. Down 12 in the first half, with the Magic cruising with primarily their second unit playing, the Nets went on a 12-2 run to end the second quarter, fueled primarily by 5 points each from Jordan Farmar and Travis Outlaw.
Fast forward to about 5 minutes to go in the fourth quarter and the Magic starting to pull away when they were up by 7. The Nets responded again, with some crafty short-range jumpers from Devin Harris – who was just fantastic last night with 26 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds on 9-16 shooting – and Anthony Morrow’s first three from the game, a shot from the corner that circled the drain before falling in. The Magic would go on to pull ahead by 7 AGAIN in the fourth quarter on some vintage, out-of-nowhere drives to the rim by Vince Carter and two free throws by Dwight Howard. With less than a minute to go, I was half-expecting the Nets to miss a shot on their next possession and seal the game for the Magic, but Outlaw came through again with a short-range jumper and then Farmar came through again with a three pointer (is it in his contract to hit a three in the final minute of every close game the Nets have played? It’s uncanny how despite an otherwise poor shooting game he found a way to drain that shot. And Magic coach Stan Van Gundy’s reaction to Dwight Howard giving Farmar room to shoot was absolutely priceless). Two missed free throws from Jameer Nelson gave the Nets life down one, and Brook Lopez obliged, attacking the rim, drawing the foul and sinking both his free throws. The only problem was there was still too much time left the clock. And with 11 seconds left, the Magic made the Nets pay when they went coast-to-coast and scored on a fadeaway baselines jumper from Nelson over Lopez’s outstretched arms. It was vindication for Nelson, who’s a good player and deserved the opportunity to right his own wrong, but it was a crushing blow all the same. Even with four seconds left, the Nets seemed doomed unless Harris had another miracle half court heave in him, which he did not.
So after a performance like that, it’s my natural inclination to look on the bright side, rather than seek out the negative, because outside of being out-rebounded 43-31, and some quiet play from their PFs (Kris Humphries followed-up his breakout performance on Wednesday with a modest 4 point, 7 rebound, 2 block game), there wasn’t a heck of a lot to be negative about. The Nets shot 49 percent from the field and held the Magic to 41.6 percent. Brook Lopez, after about 10 days of puzzling play, got his mojo back and scored 23 points on 9-17 shooting. Harris, for all extensive purposes, looks like the player he was two years ago when he was an all-star. Outlaw was a legitimate third offensive option all night, racking on 20 points and 7 rebounds on an efficient 8-12 from the field. Yes, the Nets and Lopez specifically were able to get a lot of this down with Dwight Howard be limited to 27 minutes, and in those 27 minutes, Howard was fantastic, scoring 16 points on 6-9 shooting. But Lopez went aggressively at Howard all night long, and were able to draw his 5th foul with nearly 11 minutes left in the game. Despite falling behind the Magic at various points throughout the game, Avery Johnson seemed to come up with a legitimate game plan, and the team stuck to it for all four quarters. That’s progress, even if the Nets don’t want to discuss where this progress is being born from.
