The Nets are not a good basketball team.
Honestly, they had me convinced for awhile, especially right after the trade for Thaddeus Young. Continuing their post-All Star break road trip, Brooklyn crushed the Lakers and Nuggets before losing close games to good teams in the Pelicans and Rockets. Following that, the Nets went into Dallas to beat the Mavericks–one of the West’s top teams–and returned home to take down the Warriors.
So, Brooklyn went 4-2 in its first six games with Young and was finally looking like a team that deserved one of the last few playoffs spots in the East.
But, the Nets have made quick work of eliminating all of that positive energy with three consecutive home losses. First up was a blowout at the hands of the Hornets on Wednesday. The next was a total collapse–to the tune of a blown 15-point lead in the last six minutes of regulation–against the Suns. Yet, the latest may have been the worst, and that was a 95-88 loss to the Jazz tonight at Barclays.
The Nets led by as much as six points in this one, in the second quarter after back-to-back Bojan Bogdanovic threes, but mostly played from behind in the second half as they got swept in their season series with Utah, which crushed Brooklyn at home back in January. The Jazz were down at halftime and used a strong third quarter to grab the advantage they wouldn’t give up.
However, the Jazz just couldn’t put the lifeless Nets out of their misery. Even when they held seven-and nine-point fourth quarter leads, the Jazz kept allowing the home team to sneak back into the game, even getting within a Brook Lopez free throw of tying the score.
Brooklyn was never able to get over the hump, though, continuing to miss free throws and other shots to allow Utah to extend its lead yet again, and this time, the Nets wouldn’t make much of a comeback attempt. Another late-game disappointment for a team that is running out of time to make a playoff push. Would be nice if the players seemed to care enough to step up.
Assorted thoughts: I’m not sure a NBA team has ever won a game while going 4-for-11 from the free throw line, getting outrebounded by 13 and committing 14 turnovers. Well, the Nets did all of those things in this game and they all partly contributed to the horrible, horrible loss. Mason Plumlee and Cory Jefferson combined to miss all four of their free throw attempts while even Brook Lopez missed two of his five. Brook also grabbed 10 of his own rebounds (to go with 19 points) but he, Plumlee and Thaddeus Young (19 points) allowed Rudy Gobert (11 boards), Derrick Favors (eight boards) and Trevor Booker (eight boards) to collectively grab 27 rebounds. The Nets, as a team, had 30. Finally, Jarrett Jack played extremely poorly yet again and committed five turnovers just by himself, with a bunch coming down the stretch. Unacceptable….Lopez, Young and Bojan Bogdanovic (11 points on 3-4 three-point shooting) were the only Nets who played really well, and when only three of your 10 rotation guys are getting it done, it’s very hard to win a NBA game. Right now, the Nets don’t have enough guys playing well enough to rely on a small portion of the team in games. I don’t know how to get more of the team to play better, but I do know it starts with effort and basketball intelligence. Neither of those qualities were present in Brooklyn on Sunday.
Onto the next game: Tuesday night at Barclays against the Pelicans. If you want good basketball, only watch the road team, because the home team is not good
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