As I wrote about in my preview for tonight’s Nets-Hornets game, Brooklyn and Charlotte–prior to Wednesday’s tilt–had the same record, were tied for the final playoff spot in the East and both could use this badly, considering how the Nets could clinch the season series, and tiebreaker, if they came out ahead.
Well, no season series was clinched, and that’s for sure.
Thanks to a 35-15 first quarter (yep, that happened), the Hornets cruised to their easiest win of the season over a team that’s supposed to be challenging them for a postseason spot. Charlotte led by as much as 23 points in the first half before a 10-0 second quarter Nets run helped the home team cut its deficit to 12, 56-44, by the intermission.
As Jim Spanarkel said on the YES broadcast during the second quarter, the goal in that situation is get the opponent’s lead to around 10 or 12 points by half to give yourself a chance to make a run in the third.
The Nets did the first part pretty well, but failed miserably in the second. Charlotte, to start the second half, continued to bully the lifeless, disinterested Brooklyn team by scoring 12 of the first 14 points to build a 22-point lead that essentially sealed the game with 20 minutes left to play. Charlotte would lead the rest of the way, meaning a complete coast-to-coast victory, and even go up by more than 30 in the fourth quarter. Fun times in Brooklyn
Assorted thoughts: I understand teams having off-nights, and with how well the Nets have been shooting recently, a letdown was inevitable. I get that. What I don’t get is how a team can clearly give such little effort, blatantly so, in such an important game. Missing shots can happen to the best of teams, but the best of teams still attempt to contest shots and grab rebounds on either end of the floor. There’s no excuse for getting doubled up on the glass for much of the first half, no excuse for letting Marvin Williams (18 points) and Gerald Henderson (19 points) have a free shootaround in the middle of a game and no excuse for letting Al Jefferson (19 points) singlehandedly control the paint….Six Hornets players, including all five starters, reaching double digits in points, and did so relatively early on. Just two Nets players did the same, as Brooklyn’s offense all night mainly consisted of a lot of forced jumpers, absolutely no rebounding and a scary lack of ball movement. You couldn’t draw it up worse….The loss, depending on how other results shake out tonight, puts the Nets back in the No. 10 spot in the conference. They’re a full game worse than the No. 8 seed Hornets and .5 behind the No. 9 Pacers. If the Heat beat the Lakers, Brooklyn will be 1.5 behind them. If Miami loses, their deficit remains .5 games.
Onto the next one: Nets continue their homestand on Friday vs the Suns
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