Nets Are Scorching

…At least if you believe today’s news.

Shortly after the Nuggets fell to Amar’e Stoudemire and the New York Knicks 129-125 in a battle of offensive juggernauts, a source within the Denver organization made Carmelo’s wishes very, very clear:

…while other franchises might be able to make better offers, Anthony will not agree to sign anywhere long-term unless he is dealt to New York, according to the source, who has been privy to private discussions between Anthony, his representatives and the Nuggets organization.

The New Jersey Nets have been holding out hope that their offer of Derrick Favors, Troy Murphy and two No. 1 draft picks would be the best offer available to the Nuggets, but the news that Anthony will not agree to sign with them long-term effectively knocks them out of the bidding.

In case you were worried that this was just the sneering anti-Net words of Chris Sheridan, it’s not: Ken Berger of CBSSports has also confirmed the report, and as far as I know he’s never bemoaned the Prudential Center for logically having hidden rat traps.

As I’ve stated before, I’ve long thought that the offer that the Nets have on the table for Carmelo Anthony – which is a package that included Derrick Favors, possibly Devin Harris, and multiple first-round draft picks – is far too much to give up for a volume scorer who seems more interested in bright lights than championship rings. While it may hurt to seemingly lose a gifted star to our cross-state (and soon to be cross-town) rival, if he wants to only graze at the Garden, so be it. I’m not interested in selling the farm.

The Nets enter Sunday trying to find some way to snap their six-game losing streak. Not exactly the best team to face to meet that goal.

Here are a few keys to the matchup with the Lakers:

• Exploit the Weaknesses: The Los Angeles Lakers have very few weaknesses, but the main one on defense for them is their inability to deal with quick point guards. The Lakers have trouble containing quick guards, as Derek Fisher can’t keep up with them on his old legs, opening up driving lanes and, if the big men help, open jump shots. Devin Harris is a game-time decision, but he essentially exemplifies “quick point guard.” If he plays, look for him to step up on offense and get to the free-throw line a lot.
• No Easy Looks: The Lakers are hard enough to defeat even when they’re not playing their best. Giving them open looks essentially means throwing the game away. The Nets have to key in on forcing the ball out of the hands of Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol and force other players to step up instead. Expect hard double teams on Gasol early, and look for the same if Bryant gets the ball in the post against the shorter and weaker Anthony Morrow. Terrence Williams might get an increased work load if Avery Johnson is looking for someone to check Kobe.
• The Return of the Farmar: Jordan Farmar plays his only former team for the first time this season, and you could bet he has a chip on his shoulder for the lack of playing time he got while he was in L.A. If he’s starting, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to go off. And if there are any big moments toward the end of this game, Farmar will be looking to hit those huge shots.

It’s no secret that watching Travis Outlaw on offense these past three games has been very, very difficult. While he’s a good player, there’s no doubt that he’s hit some sort of very bad rough patch. Maybe it’s a lack of confidence leading to poor shot selection, but he’s been doing a lot of these things all season – pump-faking when a shot is fine, trying to dribble around his defender to no avail, and throwing up contested shots late in the shot clock.

But don’t take my word for it:

Some of them you can’t blame him for – for instance, Jordan Farmar gets the blame for a bad pass that led to a 35-foot heave as the shot clock buzzer sounded – but most of these fall squarely on the shoulders of our once-starting small forward. I hope he can figure out, but I doubt this is what Billy King, Avery Johnson, and Mikhail Prokhorov had in mind when they invested $35 million in Outlaw.

Also, as an aside: What’s with commentators consistently mixing up Outlaw and Anthony Morrow? Outlaw is 6’9″ with an enormous wingspan and a unique, high-reaching shot, while Morrow is 6’5″ and has a textbook jumper. It makes no sense. They don’t even look that much alike, but I’ve heard that mix-up three or four times this year.

The topic du jour at practice yesterday centered around the Nets defense – or lack of it – the past three games where they’ve allowed 107.2 points and 55 percent shooting. Devin Harris reacts:

“[We had] some confusion on certain plays on what we’re doing, and it’s leaving us vulnerable on the weak side,” he said. “And we’re paying for it.”

What’s most dispiriting is even when the team was losing games earlier this year, I was thinking to myself, “well they still look a lot better than last year.” That hasn’t been the case as the competition has gotten better the past week, and if they can’t turn things around ten-fold, I can’t imagine Sunday’s game with the Lakers being even mildly competitive. I think part of it also stems with how bad the offense has been. The Nets are not making their shots and settling for jumpers, leaving them flat-footed in transition. But obviously, the biggest offender right now is the switch-offs and rotations on defense. This team just looks lost and if it’s because Avery Johnson is trying to implement some new schemes, he might want to consider simplifying things.

Nets Post-Up is a stream of consciousness post without editing. Luckily, the author can filter profanity, possesses excellent grammar, and isn’t lazy about spelling. Basically, he’s amazing.

We’ve all seen the videos of New Jersey Nets majority owner, Mikhail Prokhorov jet-skiing, mingling with the ladies, and even handling guns. To me, that screams the following terms – chest rug, Magnum P.I. mustache, and multiple cojones utilization. Apparently, not so to Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban. According to the Daily News, Cuban thinks Prokhorov is a “p*#@y”:

Box Score – The Two Man Game – Mavs Moneyball

Sometimes, there’s not much that needs to be said.

This wasn’t like the Knicks game, where a potentially winnable game turned into a depressing loss in one Devin-injury flat. This wasn’t like the Bobcats game, where a continuous series of double-sided ugliness resulted in an ugly overtime loss. This was, in fact, an identical situation to the previous two losses: the Nets faced a better team, were shorthanded, and lost.

There’s no magic, no mystery, no woulda-coulda-shoulda. The Mavericks were riding a ten-game winning streak and the Nets were mired in a six-game losing streak. The Mavericks had no major injuries, the Nets were missing Derrick Favors (thigh contusion) and lost Devin Harris (shoulder) early in the game. Dallas was at home and got great production from their bench, the Nets were away and had a bench that collectively shot 9-31 with eight turnovers. I’ll let you do the math.

Although the Nets cut a 21-point lead to five midway through the third quarter, that five-point deficit ballooned to twelve almost immediately, and any further threat was similarly neutralized. The Nets looked like they’ve looked all season – shaky on offense & terrible on defense. At one point in the third quarter, Ian Mahinmi was literally left completely wide open under the rim in what I believe the Nets were calling a “zone.” This of course assumes the word “zone” actually means “make sure no defender is even relatively close to the painted zone in the middle while opponents are there.”

That’s not to say that there weren’t positives in this game. Brook Lopez looks more and more like his old self – dropping 24 points on 8-12 shooting (both from the field and the line), and eight boards ain’t too bad either. It’s not what you’d expect from a 7’2″ guy, but with Brook’s rebounding, I’m thinking baby steps. Anthony Morrow also had a solid shooting night – while he was a little too reliant on his long jumper without always getting behind the arc, I’ll take a 21-point, 8-17 shooting night with two threes and no turnovers from him on almost any night.

But the Mavericks have been together a long time, have been a consistently great team for years, and proved that they’re still a top team in the West last night. They shot 55% from the field, dished out a season-high 31 assists (led by J.J. Barea’s 13), and scored 102 points on only 91 possessions. I don’t even need to get into the near perfection of Dirk’s night, or Shawn Marion’s night, or anybody else’s – the entire team was the very definition of offensive efficiency. A team like that shows you precisely why I picked this team to win under 32 games – as this team continues to grow together, these bumps in the road are inevitable.

More thoughts after the jump.

Read more…

Cured is probably not the right word, but how else is his return from the D-League after two weeks justified? He was a relative non-factor in last night’s 102-89 loss to the Mavs scoring 6 points on 3-8 shooting and dishing 4 assists. Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don’t Lie, who was very critical of the demotion due to the fact that it was done more for punishment than for actual player development is seeing a silver lining now:

Williams appears well on his way to doing his share. Now it’s up to Avery Johnson to try to make a great talent into a great player. Which is sort of the point of coaching. It’s not always about cheering the guy who took the charge after he’s done it. It’s about turning everyone else on your team into the guy that wants to take the charge.

People have a right to defend Avery Johnson here, but I still don’t see the point in this whole endeavor with TWill. If this whole thing was about making TWill a better man or a better player then I don’t think the two weeks and four games he spent down there is enough of a sample size to enforce anything, unless Avery is one of those guys who thinks Lindsay Lohan or Charlie Sheen can get their lives back together after two weeks in rehab. The fact is, Rod Thorn and the front office already used the threat of the D-League on TWill last season and after getting his act together then, he obviously lost sight of how to act like a responsible NBA player. Perhaps I’d be less cynical of this recent move if he wasn’t recalled so quickly and in the middle of a losing streak where the Nets look about as bad at playing basketball as they were throughout the entire 2009-10 season.

Mired in a six-game losing streak, the road for the Nets gets no easier, as they take on the Dallas Mavericks in Dallas. The Mavs are on a ten-game winning streak, including some serious performances from Dirk Nowitzki and former Nets point guard Jason Kidd. The big Nets news for tonight’s game is the shakeup to the lineup: rookie Damion James has earned the start, moving Travis Outlaw to the bench. Without deeply analyzing this move, I’ll merely say that I’m a fan of it; Outlaw was at his most effective as a scorer off the bench and James is an Energizer bunny. He’s a great sparkplug to have in what’s often been a snoozeworthy starting lineup.

On that note, here are a few things to look out for in tonight’s game.

Power Forward minutes. This one seems to be up here every game, but this time the implications have increased. Avery Johnson has officially stated that Derrick Favors will be in the starting lineup sooner rather than later, and that means that he believes the Nets have three rotation-quality power forwards in their ranks. Something’s gotta give. I expect a trade soon. On a basketball note, though, it’ll be interesting to see just how much Favors plays tonight, given both this announcement and the power forward on Dallas that I hear is pretty good. Either way, these are much better problems to have than Yi Jianlian, right?

*Update: According to Al Iannazzone, Derrick Favors will be out tonight with a thigh contusion. A three-player PF rotation becomes two.

Welcome back, Terrence Williams. After averaging a monstrous triple-double in Springfield (and sharing some time with me after his first game), T-Will is back in a Nets uniform and slated to play. He said he was sent down because he had to regain his love for the game, and it’ll be interesting to see how he performs now that he’s been afforded the opportunity in the NBA again. I still think he’s got all the tools to be a perfect sixth man, and having his size at the 2 spot is going to be a huge help.

The point guard battle. Remember “Thank You Cuban”? Devin has absolutely torched these guys in the past, and while he didn’t do so as much last year he’s looked much more like 2008 Devin than 2009 Devin this season. Jason Kidd defensively is a shell of his former self, and while he’s still got some of the best court vision to ever enter an arena Devin should be able to overtake him on pure quickness alone.

For more coverage of the Dallas Mavericks, check out TrueHoop affiliate The Two Man Game.