Nets Are Scorching

Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images

The New Jersey Nets still haven’t managed to find a way to get off the schneid. And Tuesday night, they couldn’t rely on the excuse that they were facing a playoff powerhouse. In what was a rather poor showing offensively by both sides, the Cleveland Cavaliers had the last laugh in a 93-91 victory at the Prudential Center on the first half of a home-and-home.

If you look at the box score, there’s really no outstanding indication as to why the Cavaliers won this game. They shot only 44 percent from the field, only 54 percent from the free-throw line, and Mo Williams (the team’s leading scorer coming in) was held to 2 points on 1-of-12 shooting. In the world of the post-LeBron Cleveland, that’s the quintessential recipe for a loss.

Still, the Cavaliers made up for their bad shooting in other less notorious areas. Above all, they shot 53 percent from beyond the arc, and those long bombs really fell when the Cavs needed them to. Daniel Gibson was an assassin off the bench, throwing in 14 points while shooting 4-of-5 from downtown. Every time the Nets went on a run or showed some promise, Boobie was there to quell the uprising. That said, he wasn’t the only killer from deep. Antawn Jamison hit 3-of-4 from that territory, and Anthony Parker made an impossibly arced attempt with seconds on the clock that iced the game for Cleveland.

Looking beyond just the three-point shooting, the Cavaliers were dominant in other areas. They forced 12 turnovers which they efficiently translated into 18 points, and they were all over the loose balls as they always are, thanks to Anderson Varejao. Ultimately, they just outplayed the Nets at the key moments to come away with the W.

As for the Nets, it was just a tough day. The highlight of the night statistically was shooting over 90 percent from the free-throw line, but even juxtaposed with Cleveland’s dismal output from the line, it wasn’t enough. Overall, the Nets shot just 40 percent and only 30 percent from deep.

Evidently one of New Jersey’s most crippling issues on the night was Terrence Williams’s absence. With him out, the Nets were short in the backcourt, and after Devin Harris succumbed to early foul trouble, the rotation was uncomfortably thin. On top of that, Jordan Farmar had a bad game, shooting just 1-for-6 (including 0-of-3 from three) in 23 minutes. The ultimate result? Quinton Ross played 19 minutes in the game, which is a pretty good barometer for the depth of the team.

Again, the Nets did not get what they needed from their core players. While Harris was solid in the 28 minutes he did play (18 points, 6 assists, 3 steals), his absence at key stretches of the game hurt the team badly. Brook Lopez again shot the ball poorly, managing to notch only 16 points on 18 shots. He did, however, look relatively impressive on the boards, hauling in 8 rebounds on the night. More about Harris and Lopez to follow. Troy Murphy still looks like he forgot how to shoot the basketball, and he only took five shots anyway. On a positive note, he pulled down 11 rebounds to lead the team.

Fortunately, a reserve was there to pick up the slack and keep the Nets competitive in the game. For the second contest in a row, Travis Outlaw played like he was worth his deal. In a hefty load of 42 minutes, he dropped 27 to lead the team on 50 percent shooting and nabbed 7 boards. Time after time, he would nail a key jumper to spark a Nets run, and he almost singlehandedly kept them in the game through the final minutes. He backed up his reputation as a fourth-quarter scorer, logging 11 in the final period last night.

On a more thematic note, the Nets so far are a good defensive team. They had only allowed about 98 points a game coming in, and they only gave up 93 in this game. It may seem odd to hear that after last year’s debacle, but Avery Johnson has instilled a new mindset on that end, and right now it is definitely working. The Nets are denying good looks in the post, closing out on jumpshots, and they’re incredibly active in the passing lanes, constantly knocking away entry feeds and lazy passes. While the Cavaliers only turned the ball over eight times, it very well could have been 12 or so had bounces gone a different way off interrupted passes.

Furthermore, and this is somewhat related, there’s an evident sense of discipline on this team. About 30 seconds into the game, Johnson called a timeout during which he ripped Lopez for biting on Anderson Varejao’s pump fake and Harris for not driving to the rim with a fairly open opportunity. Lopez didn’t pout. Harris didn’t whine. They both took the criticism positively and applied in on the court. That’s the sign of a well-structured team. If that’s the only appreciable development that occurs with this team during the season, Johnson will have done his job well for the year.

Hopefully the Nets can strike back tonight in the second half of the home-and-home.

Some more thoughts after the break:

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Thanks to a bruising schedule, the Nets had to face Miami twice and Orlando once in the span of one week (and play Orlando again this weekend). Today, they get a bit of a break as they take on the Cleveland Cavaliers at the Prudential Center. Hopefully they’ll fare better than they did against the Cavs when LeBron was around, as the Nets have dropped four in a row to fall to third in the Atlantic Division.

Just because they lost their star doesn’t mean Cleveland is completely devoid of talent. Remember that they retained Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison from last year’s team, two players who can score when they have to. Furthermore, J.J. Hickson has emerged as more of a focal point for the team now that he’s getting an appreciable number of minutes, and he has always had admirable potential.

Some things to watch for in the game:

• Role Reversal: In the last few games, the mainstays of the Nets roster haven’t been pulling their weight; Devin Harris and Brook Lopez have struggled, and Troy Murphy still hasn’t quite figured it out coming back from injury. That said, the second-tier players and reserves have done their best to pick up the slack. Anthony Morrow finally looks comfortable shooting the ball, Terrence Williams is playing with more control, Kris Humphries has been an incredible spark off the bench with a knack for putting up second-chance points on offensive rebounds, and Travis Outlaw is starting to show that he’s worth even one tenth of the contract he got this offseason. If both troupes can get going, the Nets will start to play some impressive basketball.
• Are They Tough Enough? In the shadow of T-Will’s hip check running into the stands (of his own accord, if you ask me) on Saturday, the Nets have been preaching that they want to be tougher, and tougher they should be. Miami’s offense was a layup drill for most of the game, as the Nets were not forcing the Heat players to earn their points at the line. So they say they’re going to start hardening up and protecting the rim. In theory, it’s a great idea. However, the Nets are already near the top of the league in fouls per game, and they don’t want to risk getting their rotation players into foul trouble with too many unnecessary personals. Ideally, they need to cut out the loose-ball and non-shooting fouls so that they have more to spare on layup-sparing hacks.
• Defense! Defense! Well, I’ve now ended all three of my bullet points with a different punctuation mark, but this is important. The New Jersey Nets are 10th in team defense this season. 10th. Can you believe it? After playing Miami and Orlando three times, the Nets have only allowed 98.3 points per game. Clearly Avery Johnson’s doing something right. And if they’re going to continue to sag at the bottom of the league in offense, rebounding, and assists (28th, 26th, and 25th overall, respectively), they’ll need to continue to do work on the defensive end to have any hope of remaining competitive throughout the season.

Brook Lopez may be the best pure Center the Nets have ever employed in the 20 years I’ve been a fan of the team, but that’s not to say he doesn’t have his short-comings. In nearly every one of my recaps, I’ve picked on his inability to sometimes read a double-team properly and deliver a pass to an open shooter on the perimeter. He also has a tendency to settle for 18-20-foot jumpers when he should be living almost exclusively in the post with his back to the basket. But through the team’s first six games, another major hole in Lopez’s game has emerged – the man is just having a tough time grabbing rebounds.

Lopez’s rebound rate of 10.0 – the percentage of missed shots a player rebounds while he’s on the floor – is among the very worst of all centers in the NBA, according to ESPN’s John Hollinger.  He’s ranked 54^th out of 60 qualifying centers, behind such big-men luminaries as Hasheem Thabeet, Darko Milicic and Joel Anthony. For a player who’s trying to establish himself as an “elite” big-man in this league, that number is just unacceptable. And while Brook has never been a top-tier rebounder throughout his career, when you consider some of his other “true Center” qualities, like post-play and shot blocking, his inability to crash the boards at a more efficient rate is frustrating.

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NAS will have more on Brook Lopez’s recent struggles in a bit (wait for it …), but Stefan Bondy from the Daily News also has some tidbits from practice where Avery Johnson came down on his Center for his recent “soft” play.

“Needs to improve,” coach Avery Johnson said about Lopez’s body language in Saturday’s 101-89 loss to Miami, which alternated between mopey and frustrated. “These two nights are not nights we hope to have from him. We have to do a better job of getting him better shots. He has to be more aggressive. We’ll look at these last two games and he’ll bounce back.”

You have to figure that Lopez gets a little bit of slack since he was one of the few consistent Nets last season, plus he’s still only in his third year in the league, which is a little amazing to me. Still, he’s been a disappointment the past week, and I wonder if he’s feeling too much pressure being the definitive focal point on offense. He’s always had a tendency to force shots, but that bad habit feels a bit more magnified through the season’s first two weeks.

After picking up Derrick Favors in the draft, Nets fans have been trying to figure out the best nickname for him. I’m not partial to ones that play on his name – while I appreciate the effort, I think  “Sexual” or “Do Me A” Favors are a little hokey, to say the least. Similarly, my attempts at finding him a nickname haven’t been that good – “Hard Work Favors” doesn’t roll off the tongue and “Smoove” has already been taken by Josh Smith.

However, Akis Yerocostas over at Pick & Scroll, an NBA Blog that I contribute to occasionally, has come up with my favorite nickname for him so far in his weekly Rook Roll’d column:

“Tenacious D.”

I love it. Not only is it an awesome cultural reference, but it also simultaneously references his name and plays on the fact that Derrick has the potential to be a monster on defense. Besides, I can already hear Ian Eagle: “the pass inside from Devin- AND TENACIOUS D WITH THE SLAM!” The possibilities are endless.

Anyway, if you similarly think this nickname is as awesome as I do, spread it around! Nicknames are created and fostered by the team’s fanbase. We have the power. What say you?

After Terrence Williams’s flagrant foul on LeBron James Saturday night, it was inevitable that the topic of conversation in Nets-land was going to center on their “toughness.” The team was heavily criticized by players and fans alike last season for being “soft” so the team answered questions about whether that attitude will change this season:

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a hard foul. It can be [taking] a charge, a blocked shot. We just can’t let a guy come in and lay the ball up without repercussions,” Devin Harris said. “Sometimes we let them get to the lane a little bit too easy. I’m not saying we need to hurt guys, but we do need to protect our basket more and send these guys to the free-throw line more.”

I feel like the Nets have this conversation with themselves every season. Not to pooh-pooh it, but until I see them actually enforce a mantra of toughness, I can’t take it seriously. If Avery Johnson can get the team playing smarter on defense, no one is going to have to worry about committing a hard foul in the paint.

Photo credits: Marc Serota/Getty Images North America
Box Score – Hot Hot Hoops – The Heat Index

Round two looked a lot like round one.

Both the Heat and the Nets are brand-new teams looking to construct their identities. The Nets are future-oriented – young, developing, talented players who the front office is hoping will be able to experience a Celtic-like synergy two or three years down the road. The Heat, though, are about the now: they’ve got three great players who are looking to win five consecutive championships together, starting this year. The Nets were just another victim of this identity beginning to take shape: the Heat essentially showed off for 48 minutes last night, taking just enough time in the second and third quarters to build a lead necessary for victory. While the final score indicates a relatively close game – 101-89 isn’t too bad, all things considered – the score does not indicate the massive gulf between these two teams.

If there was one thing that was evident early, it’s that the Nets did not want to be an afterthought. The intensity was there on both sides of the floor – even if athletically the Nets just can’t compete with Miami, they were working to ensure that they were on every loose ball, boxing out hard, and trying to find the best shot every trip up the floor. Anthony Morrow was gunning (finally, since that’s his job), Lopez dominated Joel Anthony with three shots in the post early in the quarter, and Morrow also got a couple of nice steals (including one where he ripped off a LeBron James pass and drove the length of the floor for a layup and-1). Morrow was the silver lining in last night’s dark cloud; he scored 19 points in the first half on 7-10 shooting and finished the night with 25.

Matt Moore (of Hardwood Paroxysm) put it eloquently on Twitter: the Heat were trying to look pretty, the Nets were trying to win. And it’s true. Dwyane Wade tried to pull off a reverse dunk in traffic, only to be sent back by Kris Humphries. LeBron James missed a wide-open alley-oop. The problem with the Heat, though, is that most of their pretty plays work. LeBron came back with a dunk on the next possession, and Wade had a particularly nice behind-the-back dribble move into a layup soon after. Unfortunately for New Jersey, Miami’s style can still hang with most of the league’s substance, and after one period the Nets were only ahead by 1, 25-24.

In that first period, the Nets had more offensive rebounds, assists, steals, and fewer turnovers than the Heat. They were certainly executing their offense more effectively. That doesn’t matter, though; Miami is just so talented that they’ll find points in places where no other team could. Many of Miami’s shots came at the rim (more on this after the jump), where the Nets have generally been solid defenders this year (as mentioned in the pregame thread, the Nets before this game were 5th in the NBA at opponent FG% at the rim). I assume that’s just the Miami effect – they dictate on both sides of the floor, and frankly the Nets looked scared. Either way, it was strange – despite the Heat’s seemingly insurmountable talent advantage, I felt like the Nets should have been winning by more than just one point after that first period.

The second quarter began the same way – the Nets were just outhustling the Heat. One play, we saw Derrick Favors snare an offensive rebound away from Big Z & miss the putback, only for Brook Lopez to clean up the mess. Another saw the Nets run back on D ahead of every Heat player, changing what would have been a one-man LeBron fast break into a turnover. Then, Anthony Morrow blocked – yes, blocked – a Dwyane Wade shot, leading to a Travis Outlaw dunk in transition.

However, at about the five-minute mark of the second quarter – about the time LeBron James returned to the game – the momentum shifted. The Nets suddenly stopped running for loose balls as quickly, instead playing back on their heels. Wade blocked a Lopez dunk attempt. (That sounds familiar.) LeBron then found Haslem for a layup. He then stole a pass and finished with a two-hand windmill in the open court – possibly his best dunk as a Miami player yet. He then found Chris Bosh & Dwyane Wade for dunks, Wade’s on a behind-the-back pass in transition. It was the LeBron James Show, with a pretty solid cast of characters. The Heat went on an 18-5 run in this span, pushing their lead to nine. However, the Nets still found a way to close the half well: defensively they switched to a 2-3 to stymie the Heat’s slashing style, & offensively they got a huge dunk from Favors and a Morrow three off a nice Terrence Williams dish. After a Globetrotter-esque first half from the Heat, they still only led by 4, 55-51.

Third-quarter adjustments have been an issue for the Nets in the past few years, and while it’ s been an occasional problem so far early on I’m hoping that they’ve been left in the past with the old regime. The first positive adjustment that the Nets made was sticking with that 2-3 zone. The idea is to force the opposition into shooting jumpers instead of driving the lane, and it worked – the Heat’s first six attempts in the quarter were jumpers, and they only made one of them (Chris Bosh drew a foul on another). However, the Nets unfortunately seemed content with shooting midrange jumpers as well (see more on this after the jump) with a couple of exceptions, and as a result failed to make any real dent in the lead.

It doesn’t help that as the quarter progressed that the Heat (or, I should say, the big 3) were able to find multiple shots at the rim of the “Holy Miami” variety: circus layups, alley-oops, and ferocious slams, including a monster dunk by Chris Bosh over Brook Lopez. It was another prime example of the Miami Heat Extravaganza, and the Nets were only as relevant as the defender on a poster. What started as a one-point lead in the first turned into a 19-point deficit after 3. All in all, the Nets were outscored 32-17 in the third quarter, but I don’t think it was an issue of adjustment. I think it was just the Heat synergy finally working. They showed off precisely why they’re possibly the best team in the NBA in that third period, capped with a ridiculous fallaway three from about 28 feet at the buzzer from LeBron James. I mean, you can’t defend that. You just can’t.

All in all, I don’t think much was proven last night. The Nets hung around for a half with what’s possibly the best team in basketball, but couldn’t sustain that momentum over 48 minutes.  That’s not surprising. The Heat had three players with over 20 points – guess who – and no one else in double figures, but against a team like New Jersey that’s all they needed. Nothing earth-shattering. They’re starting to shape their identity more and more as the big 3 begin to synergize. Thankfully, the Nets don’t face off against Miami again until April 3rd – I’m sure they’ll be happy to see LeBron’s old team in a home-and-home Tuesday and Wednesday night.

More thoughts after the jump.

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For the second time in the first six games, the Nets will take on the the SuperThree of Eddie House, James Jones, and Mario Chalmers. I think they have some other guys, too. The Heat come into this game 4-2, fresh off a loss from the still-unbeaten New Orleans Hornets in an unbelievably fun game to watch last night. It wasn’t fun because the Heat lost – I’m not one of those vindictive anti-Heat folks you’ll find around the country – it was just a great game.

Anyway, the Nets hope to give LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and their team of cronies at least half a fight, and they’ll be doing it in Miami – their second consecutive game in Florida after the loss to the Magic two nights ago. Here are some things to look out for:

• Brook’s bounce-back. After arguably the worst performance of his career – 0 blocks, 5 fouls and 3-17 shooting in which he started 0-13 – Brook will assuredly be happy to see anyone but Dwight Howard manning the post. He scored 20 points in the first Miami game on 8-17 shooting, and while I’d rather he shoot on the other side of 50% from the field let’s hope his numbers look more like that than Thursday’s.
• Miami’s defense. For all the talk of Miami’s offensive firepower, they’re “only” seventh in the league in offensive efficiency. However, they have absolutely dominated the defensive end – leading the NBA by allowing only 94.2 points per 100 possessions. One of the big ways they’ve done this is interior defense: despite having no true interior defender, Miami leads the league in opponent FG% at the rim, as opponents only convert 52.7% of their shots in the area. (For what it’s worth, New Jersey is 5th in the NBA at 58.2%, slightly ahead of Orlando and Boston.) Through five games, it’s hard to find any real weaknesses in this Miami defense – they’re either above average or at the top in every defensive category.
• The power forward rotation. With Troy Murphy back and Joe Smith inactive, the minutes are going to continue to spread thinner for Kris Humphries and Derrick Favors. Humphries was by far the best power forward on the floor for the Nets against Orlando, so I’d expect to see him maintain his minutes, but that could also mean that Murphy & Favors see less time than expected. However, Favors did have arguably his best game so far against Miami – pulling down ten offensive rebounds and earning the first double-double of his young career – so if he shows off the same ability, it’ll be hard to keep him buried on the bench.

For further Heat coverage, I highly suggest you check out ESPN’s The Heat Index. Say whatever you want about it, but they’ve got some of the most talented NBA writers in the country covering the most high-profile team in NBA history. Kevin Arnovitz, Tom Haberstroh, Michael Wallace, and Brian Windhorst are four of the best in the business, and if anyone can cover this team, it’s those guys. Also suggested reading is long-running Heat blog Hot Hot Hoops, run by Surya Fernandez since 2009 and now running independently.