 |
| Danny Granger normally kills the Nets will his all-around scoring ability, let’s hope that doesn’t happen tonight |
The Nets will try to rebound from a drubbing at the hands of the Toronto Raptors on Sunday against the upstart Indiana Pacers in Super Bowl-host city Indianapolis tonight. The injuries continue to pile up for the Nets as Marshon Brooks (broken toe), Mehmet Okur (back), DeShawn Stevenson (knee), Damion James (foot), and Brook Lopez (foot) will all be out for this game and presumably for tomorrow night’s match-up against Detroit. Indiana has been very good this year, especially at home, and has clearly improved with their offseason signing of David West. Tonight’s game will not be easy for a banged-up team like the Nets.
Background on Indiana
The Pacers are one of those teams that doesn’t have a clear-cut superstar, but has a bunch of really good players who seem to work very well together on the offensive and defensive ends of the floor. Indiana’ real strength lies in their depth as they have a deep bench highlighted by George Hill, David West, and even New Jersey-native Dahntay Jones that can produce in a multitude of ways for the Pacers, a team that is 4th n the NBA in scoring defense. This depth and defensive prowess will spell trouble for the oft-injured Nets who are missing a bevy of key players for tonight’s game.
Previous Game
The Nets’ loss against the Toronto Raptors on Sunday night in Newark was probably the team’s worst performance of the the whole season as a depleted Toronto team without Andrew Bargnani or Leandro Barbosa out-hustled, and out-shot, New Jersey to a 94-73 win. The Nets had no answer for DeMar DeRozan who led the Raptors with 27 points on 8-12 shooting while Deron Williams was the sole bright spot for New Jersey with 24 points and 6 assists. An all-around terrible effort from a team that had been playing well recently.
NJN- D.Williams (PG), Morrow (SG), Shawne Williams (SF), Humphries (PF), Shelden Williams (C)
2. Step into the passing lanes- In that Jan. 2nd match-up, Indiana had 26 assists on their 42 field-goals as compared to the Nets’ 15 dishes to 33 FGs. When teams are getting that many assists, it means that they are getting open passing opportunities leading to high-percentage shots. If the Nets can interfere with those passes, then they can cut down on those uncontested shots that normally result from solid passing.
3. Cut down on turnovers- The Nets commit the 23rd-most turnovers in the NBA per game and partly because of that statistic, New Jersey gives up the 5th-most points per game. Turnovers, most often, lead straight to points for an opposing team and for the Nets to have any chance of winning this game, they can’t give a good team like the Pacers the additional scoring chances that come along with turnovers committed. Last game against the Raptors, on a few occasions the Nets went down the court, promptly gave up the ball to Toronto, and watched as a Raptor ran down the court for a wide-open dunk. Those are easy points to prevent but they are going to happen if the Nets keep turning the ball over.
The Pacers, when healthy, are a better team than a healthy Nets squad so they are a lot better when the Nets are facing a bunch of injuries. I predict a 100-82 Nets loss but I really hope I’m wrong. Let’s go Nets!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
