Knicks 100, Nets 86: Brooklyn Collapses

Opened the third quarter with a three-pointer from the top of the key… then a jumper on the right side… oh look, a pull-up two with his toe on the line on the break… and then an airball. So close to breaking out. Had a decent game statistically but also an awful -19 plus-minus and a total lack of communication with the bigs on pick-and-roll defense. The only thing that salvages his grade is that he hit a few open shots.

As seems to be his usual these days, Johnson found his touch in the second quarter, hitting three-pointers and midrange shots to keep the Nets afloat as Carmelo Anthony once again rained down on Brooklyn’s defense. Unfortunately, that was about it. Johnson was mostly silent in the second half, other than when the Nets went to Iso Joe on a few occasions in the fourth — without much success.

First, broken record time: thank you for the energy and effort. Carmelo Anthony is a challenge for any defender, and just trying to contain him comes with its share of difficulties. But Crash didn’t give him any issues whatsoever.

Got hit with a weird technical in the first half and that was the most interesting thing he did.

All things considered, didn’t have a terrible game. Picked up more rebounds than usual and scored inside occasionally. But what I’ll remember most about this game — and this is also true of Blatche — is that the Nets had absolutely zero communication on the Chandler-PG pick-and-roll, the Nets big came out to double the guard on all the occasions, and Chandler converted wide open looks into dunks. Chandler’s energy defined this game in a way Lopez couldn’t match.

Had a couple of nifty moves in the post and man does he love to play point guard at any possible chance, but the defensive lane is just an open ocean when he’s in the game. Blatche swatted Carmelo Anthony on a beautiful layup and a few possessions later openly traveled when he had NO shot of scoring on Tyson Chandler.

Hey, at least he hit threes.

Miss U Jerry.