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| Marreese Speights, of all people, absolutely dominated the Nets on the boards tonight |
I have simply run out of adjectives to describe the wretched way in which this Nets team loses games so for tonight, I’ll create my own: excruciatinglyhorrendous. Yep, that pretty much sums up this 105-100 loss that the Nets suffered against the Memphis Grizzlies at Prudential Center tonight. The loss was the 7th-straight for the Nets and was actually very close throughout but later in the game, the Nets simply couldn’t preserve a 4th-quarter lead that was as big as 5 points with 7:11 left.
To get to that point of the game, the Nets and Grizzlies switched off undergoing extended scoring runs which served as the multiple lead and momentum changes of the contest. The Nets had longer runs of 15 unanswered in the 1st, 13 unanswered in the 2nd, and even 11 unanswered in the 3rd. Memphis fought off all of these runs with multiple smaller runs of their own and found themselves down by 5 points roughly halfway through the 4th after an Anthony Morrow jump-shot.
Propelled by smothering defense by Memphis, disastrous decision-making by themselves, compounded with poor offensive sets and shot attempts, the Nets gave back the lead to the Grizzlies via a 9-2 Memphis run culminating in a wide open Tony Allen 3-pointer which made the score 95-93 in favor of the Grizz. Then, Marshon Brooks and Deron Williams promptly committed two turnovers each in the last 2:40 of the game which allowed Memphis to secure the win.
I understand that the Nets being competitive with a solid, playoff-team like the Grizzlies should be classified as a moral victory but the truth is that right now, New Jersey, standing at 8-22, can’t afford any more moral victories and only need actual marks in the W column. The Nets did have me fooled early on that we had a concrete chance at a win over a decent win, highlighted by improved play by Marshon, D-Will, Morrow, including even Sundy Gaines and Johan Petro (It truly pains me to write those last two names).
However, the chronic Nets’ ills plagued them yet again tonight such as turnovers (As a team 19, Deron and Marshon had 4 and 6 respectively), nonexistent defensive rebounding (Memphis had 19 o-boards, Speights and Gasol had 6 and 4 respectively), and terrible transition defense as Memphis had 22 fast-break points compared to the Nets’ 12. All in all, I guess the Nets played better tonight than in the last few games but the way that they lost was simply gut-wrenching and was a loss that really makes you wonder why Deron Williams or even Dwight Howard would even want to sign with this team for the long-term. Sorry, being a little too negative there as hopes of Deron and Dwight are the only hopes of optimism that any right-thinking fan of this team can have at this point in time.
Some other observations I had from the game: Jordan Farmar missed tonight’s game after being suddenly scratched right before game-time with a sore groin. His instant offense and knowledge of Avery’s system could have really helped the Nets in this game because, at times, the team was extremely stagnant on offense and couldn’t really get anything going…Recent D-League call-up Andre Emmett only played 15 minutes in his Nets’ debut but I really liked what I saw from the shooting guard/small forward. He has a lot of athleticism and is aggressive in going to the paint which is a quality that this Nets team needs desperately…Returning from his knee injury tonight, DeShawn Stevenson played very poorly and didn’t seem like his injury had fully healed because he wasn’t moving around the court that well. Stevenson missed all 5 of his field-goal attempts and only played 18 minutes so maybe DeShawn aggravated that injury and Avery limited his playing time to preserve his legs for tomorrow’s game in Indiana…Jordan Williams didn’t play tonight and apparently wasn’t out due to an injury. I have absolutely no idea as to why Avery didn’t play him in a game like tonight’s which necessitated more rebounding from the Nets and J-Will would have helped with that. I really don’t understand Avery’s rotation decisions sometimes…Shawne Williams didn’t play due to a shoulder injury and I want it to stay that way. Even though the Nets didn’t end up with the win, they do seem to play better when Extra-E isn’t on the court…Marreese Speights scored 20 points and had 18 rebounds in the game. If that isn’t an indicator of how bad the Nets’ interior defense and rebounding was then I don’t now what is.
Looking Ahead
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Nets as they play the Pacers in Indiana tomorrow night as a part of their 5 games in 6 days stretch. Safe to say that I’m not feeling very confident that this 7-game losing streak will end against a good team like the Pacers.
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