Drew Gooden had a lot to celebrate in Washington, D.C. (AP)
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Here's a roundup of last night's Nets festivities.
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The Brooklyn Nets lost a close game to the Washington Wizards last night, despite shooting better from the field. They lost because gave up 19 offensive rebounds, which led to 14 more shot attempts and 23 second-chance points. The Nets recognized a lot of "back-taps" -- rebounds that were tapped out by Marcin Gortat to their guards -- but also bemoaned their poor rotations.
"They were non-traditional in a lot of the things they did," Kevin Garnett explained after the game. "What I mean by that is that usually a big rolls up (on the pick-and-roll) and everybody can rotate easily. They didn't do that tonight. They crashed three to four guys each time, they were able to get offensive rebounds, and offensive rebounds became second shots."
The Wizards are an unorthodox team, and it caught the Nets off guard when trying to get to their spots. But it must have only felt like three to four guys crashing each time, because Trevor Booker got enough offensive rebounds for three men alone. It wasn't just him, either:
As you'll see in the above examples, the Wizards only had two players crashing the glass on most plays, but that second player was usually uncontested. The Nets often had to bring that second player's defender in help defense to contest the first look, and no one rotated down to contest the Wizards on the rebound.
The Nets have recently talked about their simplified schemes making things easier defensively, and that most of it relies on communication and getting to their spots. But whatever their scheme was Wednesday night, it didn't end well for them on the glass.
The Brooklyn Nets could only watch helplessly as the Wizards toppled them, 113-107. (AP)
BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- Control. That's a word that came up multiple times at the podium in the Ortsbo Interview room at Barclays Center, a word that means so much in NBA games. The Nets didn't exhibit any control over the game in their 113-107 loss over the Washington Wizards, and the combination of missed assignments and sluggishness ultimately led to their demise.
"We scored enough points to win, but there were some rebounds that we couldn't come up with down the stretch," coach Jason Kidd said after the game. "We just lost a game that we felt we could control."
A game they felt they could control, Kidd said. But at times, they looked completely lost.
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The Nets and Wizards go head to head tonight. (AP)
The 9-15 Brooklyn Nets will try to protect home court against the 10-13 Washington Wizards tonight. Here's our key matchup of the game.
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Jason Kidd & the Brooklyn Nets are in Washington taking on the Wizards tonight. (AP)
The Brooklyn Nets are in Washington tonight to take on the Washington Wizards, who have lost three of their first four games. The Wizards are led by John Wall, but have a solid overall starting five, boasting sophomore Bradley Beal and veterans Trevor Ariza, Nene, and Marcin Gortat. The Nets and Wizards are historically intertwined for reasons I rambled about this morning.
The Nets can expect a healthy dosage of boos for one of their bench players, Andray Blatche, who, uh, Wizards fans don't like very much.
When & Where: 7 P.M. EST, Verizon Center, Washington, D.C.
Watch: YES Network
Listen: CBS 880 AM
Injury report: Nets forward Paul Pierce is a game-time decision after missing shootaround with an illness. He's officially listed in the starting lineup. Tornike Shengelia and Tyshawn Taylor aren't injured, but they've been sent to Springfield to go through training camp with the team's D-League affiliate, Springfield Armor. That means the Nets may only dress 12 tonight.
Our roundtable on tonight's X-Factors below:
The good folks over at ESPN TrueHoop Washington Wizards blog Truth About It asked me a few questions about the state of the Brooklyn Nets, and how they match up with the Wizards.
A snippet of our conversation:
T.A.I.: The Nets are 2-2. From where I’m sitting, that looks pretty, pretty good. But I imagine fans of the team weren’t well pleased with losses to Cleveland and Orlando. What about those matchups was dangerous for Brooklyn? Was there any basketball narrative parallelism between the wins against Miami and Utah?
@uuords: The Cleveland game I’m throwing out—the Nets lost by four points to a lower-seed playoff team without Kirilenko and with their best player (Williams) sitting the entire fourth quarter. It’s a different game if Alan Anderson doesn’t have to run point. The Magic game was just plain weird—the entire roster looked like it had just gotten off the plane ten minutes before game time and played listless against a young, athletic team. That’s part of what worries me with teams like the Wizards—John Wall and Bradley Beal present a matchup not dissimilar from Victor Oladipo and Arron Afflalo, while the Wizards bigs are good enough to give the Nets fits if they’re still treating road games like off nights. As for Miami and Utah, I’ll say that the Nets played almost exactly as well on both nights, which is good enough to beat the defending champs by one and a rebuilding Utah franchise to smithereens.
We also do over-unders, including how many young ladies named Anastasiya, Natalya, Oksana, or Svetlana will sit in the owner’s box this season. Check out the full post here.
Wizards starting Wall, Temple, Martin, Book and Okafor tonight. Nets have Watson, Brooks, Blatche, Wallace and Humphries going at the tip.
— Bullets Forever (@BulletsForever) April 15, 2013
NETS GAME. Time to see my scrubs light it up
— ACY$T (@KeeganCarl) April 15, 2013
PJ is resting the big 3 tonight. For once I actually agree with one of his moves. #Nets
— Julissa (@JULEZ_91) April 15, 2013
Blatche is gonna have so much fun tonight against his former team. #Nets
— FromRussiaWithDunk (@FromRussiaWDunk) April 15, 2013
I've seen a lot of meaningless Nets games in my life. This one will take the cake. Tip-off at 7:30.
— Alex Raskin (@alexraskinNYC) April 15, 2013
With just two games left until the regular season closes, the 47-33 Brooklyn Nets will likely rest their best players en route to the playoffs, but our contest plugs on: another chance to extend your streak in "The BK Game Streak," where you can build a streak predicting how well the Nets will do in each game for a chance to win a $200 Amazon Gift Card!
The game is as simple as it sounds:... MORE →
Andray Blatche (AP)
