Don’t check out the box score.
Five final thoughts after the jump.
- Okay, so the one positive: with their new ridicu-small lineup of two point guards (Deron Williams, Shaun Livingston), one combo guard (Jason Terry), one shooting guard (Alan Anderson), and one power forward/rebounding junkyard maniac (Reggie Evans), the Brooklyn Nets made their one serious dent in Sacramento’s blowout central, flying out to a 9-0 run in just 3:32 on the floor. The lineup kind of made sense — let Evans do all the dirty work, Livingston & Williams run the offense, and everyone else spaces the floor — but it’s hardly a long-term solution, not with any team with a legitimate interior offensive option. The Sacramento Kings brought DeMarcus Cousins back into the game after that 9-0 spurt, the Nets countered with Brook Lopez, and the lead was lost again.
- The Nets shot 8-25 in the paint in the first half and 23-51 for the game, which would’ve been their worst shooting area of the night if they didn’t shoot 3-13 on three-pointers.
Thank goodness for that left corner, though! - Not all was lost, thanks to Shaun Livingston:
And Paul Pierce:
But they were countered pretty strongly by Ben McLemore:
And DeMarcus Cousins:
- The Nets got F’s all around from me last night, in a fit of rage mostly borne from the fact that they kept me up well after midnight to watch an awful game. And in my defense, they were awful. But if I were doing the grades from a purely emotionless, rational standpoint, a few players would’ve gotten higher than they ended up recording. But for a 21-point loss to one of the two worst teams in the NBA? 37% shooting against the league’s worst defense? There needed to be a team-wide appreciation of just how bad Wednesday night went.
- Final thought: The Nets are now 2-5 heading into a back-to-back set against the Phoenix Suns Friday and the Los Angeles Clippers Saturday. Two wins could change the course of this team’s first chapter… but with the way the Suns (5-3) and Clippers (6-3) have played to start the season, the Nets enter both of these games as an underdog.
