Nets Fail To Defend Home Court: Bulls 90, Nets 82 (Game Grades)

Deron-Williams75

Deron Williams POINT GUARD

Flummoxing performance, especially after such a sublime outing in Game 1. For all of his ability and all of his decision-making ability, it was just frustrating to see him miss good and bad shots alike. Couldn’t hit open shots or contested ones. Definitely his roughest outing since the All-Star break, if not all year.

Joe Johnson SHOOTING GUARD

Didn’t hit open shots and fell into an all-too comfortable, all-too familiar, poor isolation-style offense as the Bulls took control of the game in the third quarter. Hit two big threes to bring the Nets back into the game in the fourth quarter, but had his shots fallen earlier, they wouldn’t have been in such a predicament.

Gerald Wallace SMALL FORWARD

Other than one gorgeous layup in the first quarter and one equally beautiful and clean blocked shot that was called a foul, a “regular-season effort” from Wallace — which is not a good thing.

Kris Humphries POWER FORWARD

Couldn’t contest with Noah/Gibson/Boozer near the rim, though he did have one nice stretch with buckets on back-to-back possessions, the second a fast-break dunk.

Brook Lopez CENTER

Looked excited out of the gate, including putting down a great dunk in the first quarter, and hit four straight midrange shots in the second. Played decent defense inside, though the Bulls shot better than they did in Game 1. If he was the Nets’ second- or third-best player tonight, perhaps they would’ve had a shot. Unfortunately, he wasn’t.

Andray Blatche POWER FORWARD

Had some good moments in the fourth quarter playing power forward next to Lopez but also got burned gambling defensively and had issues catching the ball.

MarShon Brooks SHOOTING GUARD

Entered the game, did almost nothing of consequence, and left 98 seconds later a +6. I don’t really have a grade for that, but I felt it deserved notation.

Reggie Evans POWER FORWARD

Played aggressively against Carlos Boozer — perhaps too much — but never really left an indelible Reggie-esque impact on this game beyond accidentally dribbling the ball off his foot once.

C.J. Watson POINT GUARD

Hit a few shots and distributed well but really the only major note here is that he really hates Nate Robinson and I respect him for it.