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Kris Humphries, PF 30 MIN | 4-9 FG | 2-2 FT | 9 REB | 1 AST | 10 PTS | -22
Made some fifteen-footers and ran after loose rebounds like a starving lion at a pack of wildebeests, but didn’t affect the game defensively. So much changes with Brook Lopez on the floor. |
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Shawne Williams, SF 33 MIN | 0-6 FG | 2-2 FT | 7 REB | 0 AST | 2 PTS | -23 His field goal shooting says it all. |
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Shelden Williams, PF 15 MIN | 2-3 FG | 0-1 FT | 1 REB | 1 AST | 4 PTS | -18
I’m becoming slowly convinced every day that Shelden Williams actually is Jason Collins. Shelden finished shots only directly at the rim (and missed anything not literally adjacent), played decent, unathletic, unspectacular defense, committed his fair share of fouls, and didn’t mind using his body occasionally. Has anyone seen them in a room together? |
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Keith Bogans, SG 20 MIN | 3-5 FG | 0-1 FT | 3 REB | 1 AST | 7 PTS | -23
For how fired up he’d appeared to want to show the Bulls they’d made a mistake, I thought he’d do a little more than throw Joakim Noah to the floor. Was in the upper half of Nets players tonight, though that says little. |
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Deron Williams, PG 37 MIN | 8-16 FG | 9-10 FT | 0 REB | 5 AST | 25 PTS | -20
Outside of dribbling the ball off too many legs, not much to complain about from Deron given the circumstances. Hit shots and didn’t get completely burned defensively; there’s only so much the outermost defender can do against an offense getting so many points going towards the rim. The best player on the floor for the Nets tonight, but one man can only do so much. |
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Sundiata Gaines, G 27 MIN | 4-11 FG | 3-4 FT | 3 REB | 4 AST | 12 PTS | +6
This is the kind of game where Sundiata Gaines does kind of well — where everyone is flying up and down the floor and few players play in control. But “playing well” is relative, and saying that Sundiata Gaines may have been the third or fourth-best player on the team that got blown out isn’t exactly a compliment. |
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Jordan Farmar, PG 33 MIN | 5-14 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 5 AST | 11 PTS | -5
Couldn’t make his shots, couldn’t run an offense, couldn’t stop C.J. Watson, couldn’t exploit the lack of Derrick Rose on the floor. A few meaningless buckets late bumped his field goal percentage. This is the ugly Jordan Farmar. |
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Johan Petro, C 25 MIN | 4-10 FG | 0-0 FT | 8 REB | 2 AST | 8 PTS | -8
I’m sure there’s an alternate universe where Johan Petro qualifies as one of the best 450 basketball players in the world. But it isn’t this one. Invisible inside on both ends of the floor and only useful with fadeaway jumpers. |
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Jordan Williams, F 19 MIN | 2-5 FG | 4-6 FT | 5 REB | 0 AST | 8 PTS | +8
Made a 13-footer from the left corner and got a nice feed from Deron Williams at the rim. So that’s kind of cool, I guess. |
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Five Things We Saw
- The Bulls didn’t need Derrick Rose tonight. The Bulls were without Rose for 38 of the game’s 48 minutes, both due to foul trouble and a back injury, and the Bulls still decimated New Jersey. The Roseless Bulls outscored the Nets 26-12 with him out in the first quarter. They made their first nine shots of the game and 11 of their first 12 (the one miss a Joakim Noah 16-footer, which shouldn’t count), mostly at the rim or open threes. That never changed; the Bulls put on a clinic for 48 minutes while the Nets stood around and watched on both sides of the floor. That’s what it looks like when the best team in the NBA faces a below-average team missing nearly half its roster.
- Hey, those uniforms looked kind of cool though.
- The Nets do two things that make little sense offensively: 1) they attempt, as a collective whole, an absurd amount of reverse layups, and 2) they let the clock run down unnecessarily without having an offensive gameplan until it’s far too late. It’s one thing if you’re running an offensive set with multiple looks through 24 seconds, it’s entirely another when you’re keeping the ball above the 3-point line throughout without getting a decent look at the basket. This results in far too many 24-second shot clock violations.
- Basketball comes down to a few very basic concepts. Pack the paint, defend the perimeter, convert at the rim, make your open shots. Control the four factors (shooting, rebounding, turnovers, fee throws), control the game. The Bulls did all of this, the Nets none of it. Every Net is culpable defensively; the pick-and-roll defense scattered, the spot-up defense nonexistent, the contests at the rim invisible.
- But seriously, cool uniforms, right?
