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| Brook was phenomenal tonight, it finally looked like the old Brook (without the rebounding) from before last year's debilitating foot injury |
It got very iffy at some points, but the Nets were able to hang on in the end in order to finish off the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, handing the Thunder just their third home loss of the season. After their simply disgraceful loss in San Antonio on Sunday night, Brooklyn came out with a clear desire to win this game going away, hustling and hitting shots to extremely uncharacteristic degrees. Capping off the first quarter was a patented Andray Blatche 12-foot jumper, one that increased the Nets lead to 33-19 over the overmatched Thunder, who were nearly as stunned as their fans that they were getting smoked by the Nets.
In the next 12 minutes, the Nets' lead was stabilized and even slightly augmented by a shorthanded bench missing the services of C.J. Watson and Jerry Stackhouse. Tyshawn Taylor got most of the back-up point guard minutes (nine to be exact) and played pretty well, not putting up much in terms of stats but managing the game very well and distributing the ball to his teammates–who were making it rain from the field–without any mistakes. Kris Humphries supplemented the starters well too, as he came off the bench and scored 11 points and grabbed seven boards in 25 minutes, more playing time than starting power forward Reggie Evans got. Andray Blatche and Keith Bogans also played well in their usual roles off the bench as the Nets built a game-high lead of 22 over the Thunder at a few points in the quarter just to settle on a 16-point halftime lead.
Next was the third quarter. Wanna venture a guess as to what happened then? If you guessed that the Nets–like they have done the entire season–would blow almost their entire lead, then you would be right. For some reason, it always seems as if they lose all basketball sense and/or ability after halftime and tonight was no different as they only scored two points in the quarter's first five minutes, eerily similar to the Spurs game. They would eventually score 15 in the period but the damage was already done as Oklahoma City made up 12 of the 16-point halftime deficit and controlled nearly all of the momentum as the Nets looked to be headed to another failed attempt at beating an elite team.
In the game's final quarter, our Brooklyn squad certainly gave us a few heartstopping moments, like the pair of Kevin Martin three-pointers which cut the Nets lead to one point and tied up the game on separate scenarios. However, whenever it appeared that Oklahoma City would break through and grab the lead, the Nets responded with key buckets, many of them from Joe Johnson who had a monster, 33-point game and was nearly unstoppable both in the paint with his sick floater and from behind the arc with his unlimited-range three-pointers. Brooklyn went on to seal the game off with an astounding 20-21 free throw shooting mark in the final frame (as pointed out by Newsday's Roderick Boone). A surprising end to the most surprising Nets win of their entire existence as the Brooklyn Nets.
Some other observations I had from the game: The Nets' Big Three of D-Will, Joe Johnson, and Brook Lopez far and away won this game for new coach P.J. Carlesimo, who seems to be gelling well with his squad going 3-1 so far. Those three guys scored 77 of the Nets' 110 points on the evening and did so at a very efficient pace (27-48 shooting from the floor to go along with 8-12 from three and 15-15 from the free throw line). This is what Billy King had in mind when he constructed this team…..The Nets' team slashline (FG%/3FG%/FT%) went like this 50/53/86. That's amazing and will win a lot of games for this team, granted they are able to similarly replicate a performance of tonight's ilk…..The Nets forced 19 Thunder turnovers while OKC only forced 12 Brooklyn ones. The Thunder are among the NBA's worst in turning the ball over but the fact that the Nets were able to exploit that weakness of the talented Thunder shows development in this team's defensive scheme and execution…..Just two minutes of garbage time for MarShon Brooks as we continue the MarShon Brooks Official Playing Time Watch here on Brooklyn Balling. Not going to criticize it tonight as the players P.J. went with played wonderfully and it would be asinine to take them out and put Brooks in, even with all of his talent.
Looking Ahead
The Nets head to the Nation's Capital on Friday to face off with the 4-win Wizards. To say the least, it's a must-win.
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