Nets Are Scorching

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Your favorite Nets podcast is back! In this episode (recorded shortly before the Mavericks-Nets game Saturday night), Mark Ginocchio, Devin Kharpertian, & Danny Savitzky roundtable about the death of the Carmelo Anthony deal, the Nets’ resurgence, the long-term future of the team (and whether or not Devin Harris is a part of it), and whether or not Avery Johnson knows who his players are.

AP Photo/Julio Cortez

Well, that was a close one.

If you thought my last recap of a Nets game was condemning of the franchise, that would have only been scratching the surface of what I would have written had the Nets blown this game against the Cavaliers.

Fortunately, Avery Johnson and the rest managed to figure out in time that they were playing Cleveland, the league’s worst team by consensus, just before the night ended. To be honest, though, the means to the end were disappointing to say the least. While the offense was more potent than usual, the defense was equally pungent. Two days after holding the Dallas Mavericks to under 90 points, the Nets allowed (and I do mean allowed) the Cavs to break the century mark in addition to letting them shoot 45 percent from the field. By absolute standards, that’s not terrible — but again, these are the Cavs.

In the pregame open thread, I cautioned about letting Antawn Jamison and J.J. Hickson get going offensively. Apparently that memo didn’t reach the team. In related news, Brett Yormark may or may not be using the correct cover page on his TPS reports.

Hickson was a volume shooter, to be sure, needing 19 field-goal attempts just to muster 12 points. Jamison, on the other hand, tore the Nets apart from all areas: from the paint, from deep, and from the charity stripe. The only sign of NBA basketball left on that team torched the Nets for 26 points on 7-of-16 shooting, including 2-of-5 from downtown, and perfect 10-of-10 shooting from the free-throw line. I suppose you can’t guard everyone all the time, but aren’t there better candidates for the Daily Ignored than Jamison on that team?

Meanwhile, I’d like to credit Joey Graham for pulling an anti-Stephen Graham at the end of tonight’s game. With the Cavaliers down three points, Joey stuck a three-pointer from the corner to square the game at 101. It was Stephen who, in the second overtime of the Nets’ 3OT loss to the Thunder, fouled Jeff Green in the act of shooting from beyond the arc with the Thunder down three points. Kudos to Joey.

Before I rant about how good things happen when Brook Lopez has the ball in his hands in the fourth quarter, here’s a short aside about Derrick Favors.

The man had a good first half, including a four-play stretch in the second quarter that made him look like an all-star. Amassing four points and two great defensive plays during that span, Favors started making me come to grips with the dissolution of the Carmelo Anthony trade. Moments later, he followed it up with a couple of bonehead plays that brought me back down to Earth. Overall, he had a great game. 8 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 blocks in 17 minutes is impressive.

Obviously that last figure begs the question: why didn’t he play more? The immediate answer that comes to mind: He must have been in foul trouble. But what if I told you he didn’t have a single personal foul during those 17 productive minutes?

It’s true, in fact, that Avery Johnson decided to bench Favors for the remainder of the game after failing to box out on a free throw leading to a Cleveland offensive rebound. When you have a player like Kris Humphries (11 points, 11 rebounds) coming off the bench, you can afford to play the disciplinarian role with a young player to make the point that fundamentals are necessary to winning. So I have no qualms with Johnson’s personnel decisions.

But once Hump starts taking shots from more than 10 feet away from the basket, maybe it’s time to give the rook a second chance. Hump’s a great rebounder and bruiser, but midrange shooting isn’t exactly his specialty. No matter — the Nets won, and Favors will think twice before he blows a box out on a free throw again.

As for Lopez: Has Johnson finally realized that he can be an asset in the closing minutes? On essentially every play in latter half of the fourth quarter, the Nets ran the same set with double picks along the baseline to establish Brook in the post with a mismatch. And it worked.

After missing a shot with 8:41 left to play in the game, Lopez took four shots before the end; he made all four of them, including a 10-foot jump hook with just over a second left to seal the game.

It’s easier to defend giving the ball to Lopez in the post down the stretch when Anthony Morrow is back to keep defenders honest on double teams, but it appears the Nets have found a stop-gap solution to their lack-of-a-closer woes. How many centers can seal a game for their team like that with such efficiency? Very few.

Speaking of Morrow, his return to this team has been a godsend. Vujacic is a good shooter, there’s no doubt, but Morrow just adds to the team’s arsenal from beyond the three-point line. His shooting ability lets the Nets space the floor so much better, and if defenders overplay him, he can beat them with a dribble move and pull up from anywhere in the 10- to 15-foot range. And he never misses from there. Morrow only had 16 points and shot 1-of-6 from deep this game, but his buckets always seem to be meaningful.

Lastly, give credit where credit is due: Jordan Farmar had a solid game, logging 11 points while shooting 3-of-4 from distance. I think it’s the hair; he’s recreating the UCLA mystique.

Prior to yesterday’s win against Cleveland, Avery Johnson had some high praise for Kris Humphries, giving an indication as to what his future with the organization may be:

“We want Humphries back,” Johnson said. “What the Nets are all about and where we’re going, Humphries is our kind of player. We’ve told him that. We would love to have you as a part of our program as we move forward.”

If you asked me to predict that Avery would say this about Hump before the season started, I would have never believed it, but Humphries deserves the praise. However, I only want to see the Nets bring him back as a back-up to Derrick Favors. Favors needs to be “the man” in the front court sooner rather than later, and I hope Avery has the patience to let this happen.

The New Jersey Nets come back Monday fresh off their last-second loss to the Dallas Mavericks on a rim-in Dirk Nowitzki jumper to take on the Cleveland Cavaliers at home in the Prudential Center. Here are a few keys to the game.

This is a must-win: You can probably count on one hand the number of times you’ve labeled a game a “must-win” for a team with 12 wins halfway through the season, but the Nets have to win this game to maintain any semblance of being decent at basketball. The Cavaliers, atrocious overall, are particularly atrocious on the road; they haven’t won away from the Quicken Loans Arena since early November … when they took down the Nets. Things have changed since then, of course, as defensive anchor Anderson Varejao has been declared out for the season with injury. Again, this is a game the Nets have to win.

Post Defense is Key: I suppose that’s a bit of a pun, but it wasn’t really intentional. At any rate, as bad as the Cavs’ roster is, its brightest spots shine from the frontcourt, where Antawn Jamison and J.J. Hickson are the only nightly reminders that Cleveland isn’t a D-League team. Avoiding a loss will mean keeping that pair from going off on the offensive end in the post. You can take your chances with Cleveland’s rag-tag assortment of perimeter players.

Brook Lopez Exists in the Fourth Quarter: While Saturday’s game against the Mavericks culminated in a loss, it was nice to see the team actually get Brook Lopez the ball for once in the fourth quarter. And, believe it or not, he was actually impressive with those possessions. Instead of just firing away from the perimeter down the stretch, the Nets need to keep featuring Lopez on the block in the final period to give themselves the best shot at winning some games.

For more on the Cavaliers, check out Cavs: The Blog.

Well this will go down as one of the more interesting weeks of the 2010-11 season. The Nets had 4 games, won 2 of them and made the most news by bailing out of the Carmelo Anthony sweepstakes. As I said in my recap of the Jazz game Wednesday, I like what owner Mikhail Prokhorov did by finally ending this speculation and all these rumors. I will continue to maintain that I don’t think the Anthony rumors are the reason this team was losing, but coincidence or not, they have been playing well since Billy King and Prokhorov announced that Carmelo was no longer in the Nets’ sights.

Last Monday I wrote about how the Nets had some very winnable games on this 5-game home stand, and it would be nice if they went 3-2. And while they’re already 2-1 with games left against the Cavs and Grizzlies, they could easily already be 3-0. The Nets played a real tough game against the Mavericks Saturday night, but fell 87-86 after Dirk Nowitzki hit a game-winner from the middle of the lane. This game reminded me a lot of the game at home against Orlando in mid-November. The Nets played well enough to win against one of the better teams in the NBA, but lost by 1 (both games were also coincidentally on Saturday nights).

So the Nets are 12-32 and have 38 games left in the 2010-11 season. These last few games may just be fool’s gold and what I’m about to say is probably a bit out there; but it is not completely unrealistic to think this team can still be in the playoffs. Now before all you commenters close out of this article, let me give you some numbers to think about. As ridiculous as this sounds, the Nets are only six games behind the 8th-seeded Bobcats and seven behind the 7th-seeded 76ers. There is no other way to say it: the bottom of the East is just awful this season. The 7 and 8 seeds are on pace to win 32-35 games, which is why it isn’t inconceivable that the Nets could actually make a run at the playoffs.

Now here are the problems with getting there. For one the Nets have not showed that they can consistently win in this season at all. They have not won more than two games in a row all season, and it seems as though every time they win a few games, a 5-6 game losing streak comes next. The other problem is the number of teams between the Nets and the 8-spot. 6 games back with still nearly half the season to play is nothing insurmountable, but to hop over 5 other teams to get there will be pretty tough. So while no part of me thinks this team will even contend for a playoff spot, when you look at the standings they really aren’t out of it. But they will need to do something they haven’t done all season, and that’s get on an extended winning streak.

This coming week should see the Nets go 2-2 in my opinion. Tonight they’ve got a game at home against Cleveland that they have to win, then home for Memphis Wednesday and at the Pacers and Bucks over the weekend. Of course it would be nice to take both of these games at home and then go split the two in the Midwest on the road, but I’m not going to get greedy yet. Win tonight and go from there…

The theme from Fred Kerber’s morning dispatch today is that the Nets showed they could competed with some very good teams this week, but ….

The Nets got two wins and easily could have had three. Opponents’ field-goal percentages of 41.6, 33.3 and 34.7 would indicate three wins. But the Nets’ execution in the endgame and their lack of a true, legit star kept them from a 3-0 run in front of Prokhorov.

How many times has the lack of a stud cost them this season? Pick a number. And make it high.

I feel sometimes the beat writers wanted this ‘Melo deal to go through more than a lot of the fans did. I can understand – it’s probably difficult writing about a 12-win team that has no star to speak of.

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.

New Jersey Nets majority owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, received mostly positive comments about his recent press conference when he put the kibosh on any Carmelo Anthony trade. Some saw this proclamation as a negotiating ploy. Others saw it as Prokhorov being a white knight emerging from the darkness to save the day. Some saw it as a great symbol of an owner putting a player in his place and shifting power back to the owners. That’s a bit extreme, but considering the CBA coming up, it’s a good angle to take, and maybe it’s true. Read more…

The Nets should have won, but Dallas played keep-away. AP Photo/Bill Kostroun

Box Score – Two Man Game – Mavs Moneyball

Coincidence or not, there’s no question that the Nets have been playing better basketball since the infamous Mikhail Prokhorov “I must break you, Denver” press conference on Wednesday. But after knocking off a very good Utah Jazz team and a very bad Detroit Pistons team, expectations were a little mixed as to how the Nets would hand the Dallas Mavericks last night. A good team that’s been struggling since the New Year, especially on the road, the Mavericks feature a host of offensive weapons that Nets have seemingly been unable to contain around the league this season. Yet, when the dust settled last night, the Nets ended up losing a game they unquestionably should have won.

It was an 87-86 win for the Mavericks, a one-point game which means it could have gone either way. However, the Nets outplayed the Mavericks in so many areas, I don’t understand how they were ever in a position to have to storm back and take a lead in the game on an 8-0 run in the last 4 minutes, only to watch Dirk Notwitzki take the whole thing away with an up an under move that dropped in after rolling around on the rim for what seemed like an eternity.

Let’s start with the Nets’ entire defensive effort, which I thought was pretty solid. While the Mavs are not the juggernaut they once were, they still have Dirk and Jason Kidd in the starting line-up and a great instant offense guy in Jason Terry lurking on the bench. The Nets held the Mavs to 35 percent shooting for the game and 87 points on about 90 possessions, which works out to an offensive efficiency of about 97 points per 100 possessions, well below the Mavs season average of 104.9 points per 100 possessions. I thought the Nets bigs, despite Brook Lopez (4), Derrick Favors (4) and Johan Petro (5) all getting into foul trouble, did a good job rotating on Dirk and holding him to 7-24 shooting for the game. The Mavs kept riding Dirk all night, and obviously with good reward, but while he did miss a few wide open shots, he also missed a bunch of shots because they Nets kept throwing a different mix of defenders at him and constantly had two hands in his face before any jumper.

Of course how the Nets chose to defend Dirk on Dallas’ final possession will probably raise some eyebrows.  After giving Dallas the ball back with 20 seconds left (we’ll get to the last two offensive possessions for the Nets in a moment), everyone in the arena knew who was going to get the next shot. The only question for me was how many seconds the Mavericks were going to leave the Nets at the end. I’ve been a very vocal critic of Avery Johnson’s insistence that Stephen Graham is some kind of defensive whiz. Despite whatever reputation proceeded him before he joined the Nets this year, earlier this year I used some on court, off court numbers from 82games.com to show that Graham is not making a difference on that end. We’re not more than halfway through the season, a season that Graham has regrettably played a lot of minutes, and the number still hold serve. The Nets defense allows 115.5 points per 100 possessions when Graham is on the floor and 108.9 points per 100 possessions when he’s off. OK, we get it, he has to play right now because of injuries the Nets are super thin at SG and SF, but he shouldn’t be anywhere near the floor in a crunch time defensive situation. The Nets would even be better with Travis Outlaw on the floor in those spots (113 points per 100 possessions defensively), but I don’t expect things to change from Avery anytime soon.

It’s not even that Graham played Dirk that poorly on the final possession but I felt the Nets let the two of them go one-on-one for far too long. It was inevitable before Graham bit on one of Dirk’s fakes, and the help defender, Lopez, came over a tick too late as Dirk had already worked his way up and under with a clear shot of the rim. It was still a tough angle shot to hit, but it’s Dirk, he hits those. I would have much rather seen the Nets throw a pair of defenders at Dirk earlier and either force him to shoot or pass to someone else. The Nets had done a solid job rotating all night. That last possession was not the time to get cocky and play Dirk straight-up.

Still, even with that last Dirk shot, the Nets had 6 seconds and a timeout left to try and pull out the victory. The Nets offense was nowhere near as efficient last night as it was on Friday, only shooting 44.4 percent from the floor, but they did rack up 23 assists to the Mavs’ 18, and Devin Harris (11 assists) especially did a good job moving the ball around … until the end. On the possession prior, with the Nets milking a one-point lead, the Nets ran an isolation for Harris and he ended up air-balling a 15-footer. It also looked like he was hit in the head on the play by Shawn Marion, but prior to that, Marion also tipped the ball. You could quibble about the non-call, but it was an extremely predictable play by Avery/Devin.  Brook Lopez, despite 6 turnovers, was having a decent night offensively with 24 points on 10-15 shooting. Tyson Chandler (19 points on 7-11 shooting), probably the biggest beneficiary offensively of the Nets double teaming of Dirk, also had five fouls at the end of the game. In other words, the Mavs were having a hard time stopping Brook in the closing minutes in the fourth. So naturally, the Nets moved away from that plan and went to Devin.

Similarly on the last possession, the ball was in Devin’s hands for the most of it. This time he was looking to pass, but exhibited zero urgency during the play. After an awful in-bounds pass that saw the ball sail over Devin’s head to the opposite baseline he dribbled, dribbled, dribbled some more and didn’t make his move until there was only about two seconds left. He motioned as if he was going to try and thread the needle from top of the key into the paint to draw defenders, but Dallas collapsed early and Harris left his feet mid-move, forced to make a bad pass to Jordan Farmar. It was a bas pass for two reasons – leaving his feet left Harris with no momentum in the direction where the pass was going, so it was a weak little pass that cost valuable tenths of seconds. Second, Farmar was covered like a glove. The result was an airball from Farmar, but even if he hit the shot, I don’t think he got the shot off on time because of how long it took Devin to get into his offense. For the past two seasons, the Nets have developed a track record of not even being able to get the final shot off when they have that opportunity. And I think the common thread here is Harris. I like Harris, I really do, but I’ve never seen a guy’s sense of urgency and decision making abilities go on the fritz in crunch time quite like his. It’s almost as if that half-court heave he sank against Philly two years back inversely robbed him of his ability to efficiently manufacture the game’s final shot. Even during the Chicago game where Sasha Vujacic won the game with five second left, Sasha’s shot came off the rebound of a bad pass from Devin to Brook with the game’s final second ticking down. Sasha was in the right place at the right time, otherwise the Nets would have ended the game turning the ball over.

A few more thoughts after the jump:

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