I’m not really sure why I thought tonight would be different from most of the other nights this season for the Nets. Against an athletic and talented, yes, but certainly undeveloped and still-mediocre Milwaukee Bucks team, the Brooklyn Nets crapped their proverbial bed and lost their fifth game in a row.
Oh no, this wasn’t just 48 minutes of turnover-ridden basketball. It was 63 minutes of it, since the pain of this team always has to drag out longer than is humane in any way.
Leading by 11 points, 60-49 in the third quarter, Lionel Hollins’ sorry bunch let Jason Kidd’s young group of long, enthused, fast guys score nine points in a row. This officially turned the game from one the Nets led mainly throughout into a tossup, which went on for about an hour too long.
To no surprise, an eight-point halftime lead turned into a three-point one by the end of the third quarter and eventually become nothing at the end of regulation. How did regulation end, you ask? Oh, the Nets allowed the Bucks to tie the game on a wide open O.J. Mayo layup with 30 seconds to go.
Surely the Nets had a well-thought-out, effective play planned next, right? Nope, sorry, incorrect. With the shot clock running down, Kevin Garnett (yes, that Kevin Garnett) missed a contested three-pointer. Thankfully, Mayo missed a makeable shot on the other end of the floor, sending this wretched game to overtime.
The first overtime period was much like the fourth quarter in that in involved Brooklyn blowing a lead with O.J. Mayo’s help. This team, Deron Williams fouled the former USC star on a jumper–unnecessary for good teams, but vital for the Nets–allowing him to drill two free throws to even up the score.
Then, with a chance to win the game for Brooklyn, Joe Johnson couldn’t even get a shot off, instead throwing the ball right to Brandon Knight, who promptly missed a wide open, game-winning, buzzer-beating layup—C.J. Watson style–to push the game even further, this time into double overtime.
For the most part, the next extra session was exactly like the first. Brooklyn blew a late three-point lead by inexplicably leaving Knight wide open to hit the game-tying three. On their last possession, with a chance for a win, Brooklyn let IsoJoe heave up a horrid floater while being tightly guarded by the huge Giannis Antetokounmpo. Triple overtime.
And remember how obvious it was that Joe would be getting the ball in that situation, considering Brooklyn did the same thing at the end of regulation. Also, remember that Jason Kidd coached the Nets last year and first-hand witnessed how him hoisting up a prayer at the end of games constituted the Nets’ late-game execution plan.
The script changed for the fourth quarter, however, as Milwaukee won the tip and scored the period’s first four points. This dug a quick hole for the Nets that they weren’t able to climb out of. Brooklyn’s sole form of scoring in triple OT was a pair of three-pointers, one hit by Deron and one hit by Bojan Bogdanovic, who missed a wide open triple at the 0:19 mark of the final overtime that would have given the Nets the lead.
Some other observations I had from the game: First off, why is Andrei Kirilenko inactive again? Overall, the Nets’ defense tonight was pretty good but in the overtimes, when they needed a big stop, time and time again was Brooklyn lit up by the Bucks for a much-needed basket. Last season, AK would be the guy to enter the game at these moments and shut down who he needed to shut down. For this game, that would probably be O.J. Mayo, who on two different occasions tied the game up and sent it to an overtime (the first and third). Markel Brown, a rookie who has yet to appear in a game this season, has been active over Kirilenko. Why waste one of your better man-on-man defenders by having him wear a suit? Wake up, Lionel Hollins…Turnovers. You would think a veteran team like the Nets wouldn’t commit that many turnovers, just by being smart with the ball. Wrong. The Nets committed a gross 22 team turnovers tonight, leading to 25 Bucks points. Brook Lopez had seven of these turnovers by himself, most of which could be attributed by his stubbornness to pass the ball, ever, even when he’s being doubled and tripled. On the other hand, Brooklyn forced 15 Milwaukee turnovers and scored just eight points off of them. That’s almost hard to do, score so few points off that many turnovers. Multiple times this game, the Nets could have taken an open shot or made the right pass and instead did something stupid to put the rock right in the hands of an opposing player for an easy basket…The Nets were significantly above 50 percent shooting for much of the night but got ice cold as the game wore on, as identified in their piss-poor scoring outputs in the second half and overtimes. After the first half (49 points), the Nets scored just 69 points in 39 minutes. Conversely, the Bucks scored 81 points in that same allotment of time. However, Milwaukee was under 40 percent from the field for a decent chunk of the game and ended at 44.4 percent. The Bucks kept shooting better while the Nets kept shooting worse. It’s hard to finish out wins if you can’t hit a shot when needed. Reminder: Brooklyn made two field goals in the third overtime. In five minutes. That’s one field goal per 150 seconds…Finally, the second chance points. The Bucks simply annihilated the Nets in this aspect of the game as Brooklyn could not grab defensive rebounds, which allowed Milwaukee to get second, third and even fourth chances to score in one possession. This cooled down as the game progressed but was rampant during regulation and it kept the Bucks in the game…This team should be embarrassed. Two games in a row, at home, were they beaten by either a heavily-injured team–the Heat–or a wholly-inexperienced one–the Bucks–and this is coming after an 0-3 road trip. If you can’t win at home and you can’t win on the road, you’re not winning at all and it doesn’t appear as if that’s bothering the Nets at all, outside of some isolated comments during a press conference. There is no fight in this team, no energy and little to no effort. The Bucks came into Brooklyn having fun and that’s why they did and what do you know, they won. That team was hustling to every rebound, contesting every shot it could and played smartly, for the most part. The Nets? Nope. They may have done that in the first half but yet again, they didn’t show up in the second half and beyond. A true disgrace. If I were Mikhail Prokhorov or Billy King, I’d be very, very angry at my coach and my players. There is nothing exuding from this team other than a losing-is-okay attitude that is unacceptable for a professional sports team with players making millions of dollars a year.
Looking Ahead
The Nets go on the road for three more games, starting their trip on Friday night against the Thunder in Oklahoma City. Honestly, it’s probably safer to assume the Nets won’t win games ever than predict if they will win a particular game.
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