 |
| Melo scored 35 points and grabbed 13 rebounds on November 26th's game between these two teams, a Nets win. Will he have similar success tonight? |
When: 7:00 pm; Tuesday, December 11th, 2012
Where: Barclays Center; Brooklyn, NY
TV: ESPN
Another of the clash of the boroughs, another game with incredible interest and pertinence in the early race for the Atlantic Division, and Eastern Conference, crown. As you all know, the Nets are in a bit of a tail spin right now, riding a four-game losing streak coming into tonight's crucial game. Without Brook Lopez due to a sprained foot for all of those losses, Brooklyn has looked pretty lost, not playing much defense at all and not getting any semblance of efficiency on the offensive end of the floor as well.
The Knicks' current situation couldn't be any more different. They have won five out of their last six games, the most recent being a tight barnburner at MSG on Sunday against the Denver Nuggets. Even without Amare Stoudamire in the lineup due to injury, Mike Woodson's squad has raced out to the best record in the Eastern Conference, and, outside of their loss to the Nets and a few sporadic other defeats, it has been simply dominant, rolling through its competition with relative ease. The offseason worries people had about the team–it's age, lack of depth, and injury issues–have barely served as roadblocks or blips in the Knicks' unusual and surprising path to success early on this season.
If there is any hope for the Nets to win tonight's game, it lays in that they just match up well with the Knicks. Not having Brook Lopez (who scored 22 points and grabbed 11 rebounds on November 26th) will certainly be tough but, other than that, the Nets' core group of players shouldn't have too much trouble in handling the Knicks. The main worries are obviously in stopping Carmelo Anthony with both outside shooting and interior drives in addition to dealing with the tenacious Tyson Chandler on the glass. Sure New York has a bunch of other players who can shoot the ball pretty well (like Jason Kidd, J.R. Smith, and Steve Novak), but the Nets showed in the last meeting that their size off the bench helped in holding those shooters to a pretty low percentage (28.6 percent) and in forcing them to take really contested looks. There is the oft chance that normally-good defenders like Gerald Wallace and Keith Bogans have off-nights but they should be expected to have the same defensive success in guarding the Knicks' three-point shooters as they did last game in which these teams faced off.
Probable Lineups
NYK- Felton (PG), Kidd (SG), Brewer (SF), Anthony (PF), Chandler (C)
NETS- D-Will (PG), Joe Johnson (SG), Wallace (SF), Evans (PF), Blatche (C)
Final Thoughts
With this game being on ESPN, it's yet another showcase for the new-look Nets and a chance to further prove to the NBA that they are for real and that their recent slump is an aberration, not the norm. Not having Brook sucks, but good teams overcome adversity and that's what Brooklyn must do.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
