I stopped by the excellent San Antonio Spurs Blog 48 Minutes of Hell to preview tonight’s Brooklyn Nets game with Spurs expert/very tall man Andrew McNeill. Here’s a snippet of our discussion:
AM: When the Nets were in San Antonio, it was a short time after Avery Johnson had been fired. How’s P.J. Carlesimo doing and what’s the longest one of his press conferences has gone?
DK: Friday night’s is still going, actually. I left after the third three-hour answer. P.J.’s been up and down — literally, just once. The Nets were jolted immediately after Johnson got fired, and it was evident. LeBron James said it best: they’re not doing anything different, their system hadn’t changed other than a few minor tweaks, but they were just playing harder under P.J. Unfortunately, after the first bump, they’ve fallen prey to some of the same issues in the past eight games that hurt them at the end of Avery’s tenure: not running through sets or exerting the effort to do them successfully, then falling back on late-clock isolations. It’s cost them bad losses, and P.J. (or something) has to get their energy/effort back up to right the ship. And seriously, probably about 15 minutes.
AM: When he was in San Antonio on New Year’s Eve, his pregamer was a solid 10 minutes. My shoulder got tired from holding up my recorder. And then I just stopped because I knew I wasn’t going to use any of it.
I do love monitoring the dead coach bounce, which is one of Basketbawful’s greatest contributions to the blogosphere.
DK: Yup. It’s pretty clear here. Even if you don’t believe a word that comes out of a player’s mouth, it’s hard not to see that Deron was shooting and playing better once P.J. took over. These days? Kind of going back down the end-of-A.J. road. I have one answer from P.J. that is six minutes long, and he didn’t answer the actual question
AM: That’s the worst. If Pop’s not going to answer your question, he’ll let you know immediately. It’s one of his good qualities.
DK: I’m planning on going to one of Pop’s pre- or post-game pressers tonight just to watch the man in action. I’m far too terrified to actually ask him anything.
AM: I suggest pregame. Depending on his mood, it’s a lot of fun. Either way, there’s more of a back-and-forth than postgame, when the video cameras are in his face. But he loves New York, so I’m pretty sure he’s going to be in a good mood.
DK: Excellent. I’m giddy! I mean, professional.
We also discussed he power forward problem, Joe Johnson’s sideburns, Brook Lopez’s career season, and more. Check out our full discussion in the link below.
Read More: 48 Minutes of Hell — Spurs at Nets Give and Go Preview
