Saturday, January 31, 2009

Nets (85)-Sixers(83)

I only caught the end of the 3rd quarter and the entire fourth quarter of this game, but I'm sure glad I did.  I turned it down with the Nets down 14 and the camera showing Vince grimacing in pain along the Nets bench because of a sprained right ankle... my thoughts at the time "oh god, another bad Net loss, why do I root for this team?"  But the last 15 minutes of game time, made me forget that pessimistic thinking, as the Nets made their back without VC for a big road win.  The Nets had cut the lead down to 10 at the end of 3, a manageable but not ideal deficit.  With VC out the Nets were playing 2 guys that hadn't been seeing much court time: CDR and Trenton Hassell.  One of them, Hassell, made a huge difference.  The Nets were a stout defensive team in the 4th quarter, holding the Sixers to 2 for 20 shooting in the 4th quarter, which is an incredible accomplishment for this defensively challenged team.  Hassell played tough defense for the nets including making a few blocks and steals down the stretch.  With such defensive struggles the past few weeks, a strong defensive player like Hassell should be playing and he showed why tonight.  The Nets also got strong contributions from Keyon Dooling, Devin Harris, and Brook Lopez, who contributed to the victory.  The Nets won despite an offensive rebounding barrage from the Sixers and free throw deficiency from Devin Harris, and they won with defense.  Yes, you read that right, defense.  The Nets won and they played defense, a coincidence? I think not.

Apology

Loyal readers i want to apologize for my lack of posts over the past few weeks.  I have been very busy with midterms and other things, but have tried my best to watch as many net games as possible but haven't found the time to blog about them. So i am going to resume blogging, starting with tonight's game versus the 76ers.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Nets-Heat

The Nets can't beat the Heat. This isn't just me sharing my opinion about the fact that the Heat have been and are better than the Nets, this is fact. The Nets played their 3rd down to the wire game with the Heat this season and lost for the 3rd time. I will point out that they were without Devin Harris for this game and the first meeting but still they need to beat this team especially considering the fact that they are so close in the standings. I was switching back and forth between this and the football games but I was there to see D-Wade dominate us yet again down the stretch. He hit some big free throws and tough jumpers in overtime to all but seal a Heat victory. The Nets were down 6 with 35 seconds left and actually made a valiant comeback to get it to 3 with just under 10 to go but Vince fresh off his game winner yesterday, forced up a bad 3 despite Keyon Dooling being wide open and there being 7 seconds to go. Just another chapter in the growing frustration that is playing the Miami Heat.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Nets-Hawks

What an exhilarating game. I went to the game with a friend and it was awesome (well the second half was). The Nets played an absolutely awful first half, they couldn't score to save the life of them. They had only 16 points about midway through the 2nd quarter and only 29 at the half. They were down 20 at the half but I think they were lucky they were only down 20 because the Hawks should have run away with this game, and 20 points may seem like a lot but the Hawks could've been up by 30. The game was so atrocious though that Coach Frank got himself ejected because he had clearly seen enough of their offensive ineptitude, and Brian Hill was left in charge of the sqaud. The boos were coming down from around the building during the first half, particularly at the end of it as it ended on quite a poor note. The Nets had a little over 4 seconds left with the ball and they throw it into Brook Lopez who loses it, and Mario West, a 12th man for the Hawks buries a half court jumper, this epitomized the first half... nothing went right.

The second half was a different story though, as the Nets went to a semi-trap defense and the Hawks suddenly couldn't find the basket while the Nets were pushing the tempo and burying their 3s. The charge was led by Devin Harris (26 points, 11 assists) who pushed the ball up the floor alot and created for teammates, setting up a lot of wide open threes. They would be cutting the lead and the Hawks would push it up, and the Nets could never really get over the hump. Had the Hawks made their free throws I don't know if the Nets would have had it in them to comeback but in the late 3rd quarter and early 4th Zaza Pachulia and Josh Smith both missed a couple of free throws and the Nets hung around. VC had a terrible first half then he heated up at the end of the 3rd quarter but when Harris was taken out, Vince went into trying to take over all by himself mode and started forcing shots. Brian Hill made a good coaching decision though to take him out when he started doing this. The Nets got some great help from the role players tonight as well as Simmons and Hayes both played very well and buried some big 3s, Dooling also gave the Nets a spark, and so did Josh Boone. On his 1st sequence in the game Boone grabbed 3 offensive rebounds on 1 possesion before being fouled, he played with a lot of grit. The Nets finally got over the hump at 69-68, then an interesting coaching decision was made as brian Hill had Ryan Anderson in the game even though Frank had recently taken him out of the rotation. Anderson buried a huge 3 to give the Nets a 74-71 lead, and the game went back and forth the rest of the fourth with the Nets going with a small lineup of Harris, VC, Hayes, Dooling, and Lopez. Harris tweaked his hamstring with about 5 minutes to go in the 4th and he wasn't the same after that, turning the ball over and shooting poorly.

The Nets were in control of overtime, continuing their great shooting, and they had the ball up one with 20 seconds to go and the Hawks didn't foul and Harris turned it over, leading to a Hawks score. The Nets then had the ball with 12 to go and there was a foul with 4 seconds left. A bad inbounds throw went into the back court and was retrieved by Carter who took a few dribbles and from 31 feet buried the game winner, and the crowd which had been cheering the Nets on the entire 2nd half, erupted.

What a game.

Nets-Bobcats (2), Nets-Bulls, Nets-Pistons

I was way for all of these games so I can't comment insighfully on them, but I'll just make some borad observations. Even though Charlotte has been playing well since acquiring Boris Diaw and Raja Bell, they still aren't a very good team (they are the lowest scoring team in the league in fact), and the Nets should've won both games of the home-and-home. While on the topic of the Bobcats though I must say how happy I am they passed on Brook Lopez in June, it turned out great for us.

The Bulls had lost 7 straight road games coming into their game with the nets, and given the Nets recent struggles at home they of course snapped their streak at the Meadowlands.

The Detroit game I think should serve as a deterrent to anyone that wishes to criticize Vince Carter for not caring enough. I've never bought into the fact that VC doesn't really care about the game, he's just not an incredibly emotional guy, but neither is Eli Manning and he won a SuperBowl. It was also nice to see the Nets make a run in the second half, even without their best player, a good sign for the team.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Nets-Pacers

This is one of those games the Nets should feel lucky to win. They never really played great the entire game, they hung around mainly because the Pacers aren't very good, and they have a terrible defense. I watched the game while packing for Florida and while it was close it was never really exciting enough to warrant my full attention. I thought the Nets lead was secured when they were up 7 with a little under 3 minutes to go, but they blew the lead and the Pacers were going to extend the lead after taking it bt Danny Granger one of the best foul shooters in the NBA missed some big free throws down the stretch and the Nets hung in there, down 1 on their final possession. The play they called on this possession was questionable, they had Vince just holding the ball near the sideline then he passed to Devin and he didn't have much time to do anything with it and he took a jumper from about 18 feet straight away and wouldn't you know it went in for Harris' 1st career game winner. An exciting ending to an otherwise mediocre game. The Big 2 for the Nets stepped up again as Harris, in addition to the game winner, contributed 29 points and 11 assists, while Vince had 38 points and 8 boards. These 2 are the key to any success the Nets have this year, and they stepped up again.

Nets-Rockets

This game was hyped up beyond belief: Yi vs Yao, the battle of the faces of Chinese basketball. Well the game didn't live up to the hype, as it was an absolutely terrible game. This game was never close, as the Nets trailed big early on (they trailed by 16 after the first quarter) and despite scoring a few buckets here and a few there, they were never able to make a true dent in the Rockets lead. The Rockets were in control throughout and when the Nets tried their trap defense in the 3rd quarter to come back the Rockets would consistently beat it, and their lead hovered around 20. The only reason I stayed till the 4th quarter of the game was because of the T-Shirt toss, the possibility of winning a T-Shirt was much more exciting than the actual game. Yes, that's how bad the Nets played. And for those of you wondering who won the matchup between the two Chinese big men: the answer is as embarassing as the result of the game, Yao was great, Yi was well he was symbolic of the Nets performance. Yao had 24 points and 16 rebounds on 8 of 13 shooting while his counterpart (Yi) had 10 points and 7 boards on 4 of 13 shooting. Not a good night for the Nets, or Yi.

Nets-Heat

This was a typical Nets-Heat game of recent years. The game was a hard fought battle right till the end with lots of back and forth play, and ultimately the Nets demise coming at the hands of perennial Net killers Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem. I only caught the second half but it was very exciting. The game was relatively fast paced, and the defense was poor on both sides but that's what made it exciting. The Nets defense had no good answer for Dwyane Wade as he was just unconscious. Trenton Hassell, probably their strongest perimeter defender played pretty good defense on Wade but Wade just hit tough shot after tough shot and many possesions there was really nothing the Nets could do. Wade finished with 43 points on the night, and he was the reason the Nets could never really get over the hump in the second half they'd cut the lead down to 3 or to 1 but Wade would always answer. The Nets finally did get over the hump though with a little over 2 minutes left but that lead wouldn't hold, especially since Wade got his usual treatment from the refs and was given a bailout foul call with under 5 seconds left on the shot clock when the clock ticked under 2 minutes. Wade's partner in crime, Udonis Haslem, delivered the dagger nailing a corner jumper with under 15 seconds to play and the shot clock at 2 to give the Heat a 5 point cushion that the Nets couldn't overcome.

Nets-Mavs

O how I wish I could've been there. I would've gone to this game had there not been a blizzard and I'm very disapointed I missed this. Devin Harris put on a clinic in front of Mark Cuban dropping 41 points and dishing out 13 assists, demonstrating to his former teammates and former boss who got the better of last February's trade. My favorite part of the night though wasn't Harris' utter domination it was YES Network repeatedly showing a stunned and baffled Mark Cuban behind the Dallas bench, and the "Thank You Cuban" chant at the game's end. The Nets were an offensive juggernaut led by thier lightning quick leader who had help from VC who dropped 34 points of his own and grabbed 10 rebounds along with 6 assists, and also got some solid shooting from the bench as Jarvis Hayes went 5 for 8 from the field and scored 14. This game was never really close in the second half, as the Nets led by 20 early in the 3rd quarter, everything after that was just icing on the cake for the Nets against the former face of their franchise. This was not only a great win because of the opponent but also because of the Nets recent struggles both at home and in the 3rd quarter and tonight they proved they can play well in the 3rd and win in their own building. A very satisfying victory.

Nets-Jazz

A very disheartening defeat. I only caught the 4th quarter of the game but obviously any time you have a 22 point lead and blow it, you can't be happy. The nets played pretty competitively throughout the first half of the fourth quarter and they were up 80-77 with about 5 and a half minutes to go, that's where the Jazz just started to systematically pull away from them. The Jazz went to a zone defense that the Nets could not break for the life of themselves, and went on an 11-0 spurt to all but seal the game. The Nets just really could not get anything going against the zone, they were really stifled by it, and their frustration at the offensive end started to get to them at the defensive end as well. Devin and Vince both played well, as did Brook Lopez but the Nets couldn't keep the momentum from their fast start and that cost them.