Down 2-1 and on the road in the first round, the most important game of the season for the Brooklyn Nets starts at 2:00 P.M. EST against the Chicago Bulls in Chicago. Here’s five things to keep an eye out for.
1) Gerald Wallace & Reggie Evans. Judging from the unscientific view of reading articles and seeing my Twitter mentions, seeing how these two are utilized in Game 4 seems to be the most popular inquisition by fans and writers alike. Wallace and Evans each played 25 minutes — all but roughly 30 seconds together — and the Nets suffered from spacing issues and a dearth of scoring. The logical argument would be that Nets interim head coach P.J. Carlesimo needs to stagger their minutes if neither can perform offensively. Will he?
2) When will the bench piss a drop? As Jerry Stackhouse said after Game 2, the Nets’ bench “ain’t pissed a drop yet,” and that didn’t change in Game 3. The bench mob, one of the strong suits for Brooklyn for much of the season, has been held shockingly ineffective in the playoffs, averaging a little under 25 points per contest while shooting just 39.5% from the field in three games, and 32.8% in the two losses. Keith Bogans, usually the first wing off the bench, was a surprising DNP-CD in Game 3 for reasons unclear. Jerry Stackhouse and MarShon Brooks have struggled, though some fans have clamored for Brooks to get earlier playing time.
3) Joakim Noah vs. Brooklyn. I might as well copy and paste this from Game 3’s things to watch for, but it’s true: with Noah in the game, Brook Lopez and Deron Williams’s effectiveness shift rapidly. Lopez struggles to score in post-ups when he can’t get deep position, and Williams treats the paint like it’s protected by a force field. Noah’s minutes will assuredly be limited again, and how the Nets take advantage of those minutes when he’s off the floor — as well as adjust their attack with him on it — could make all the difference.
4) Joe Johnson. After playing 41 minutes through plantar fasciitis while listed as a game-time decision for Game 3, I’d expect him to play once again — but how effective will he be? His production throughout this playoff series has been remarkably pedestrian — bad isolations have tempered his field goal percentage, and outside of shooting he hasn’t been the difference-maker you’d expect from an All-Star shooting guard in the playoffs. What will the offense look like when Joe Johnson has the ball?
5) Brook Lopez’s defense. Lost in Game 3’s grind-it-out depressing loss was the fact that the Nets’ defense — which is normally somewhat porous against solid teams — actually played pretty well; if you ignore that their offense should’ve been fined by the NBA for conduct detrimental to the sport, they held the Bulls to under 40% shooting, 20% from three-point range, forced 13 turnovers, and got seven blocks from All-Star center Brook Lopez. The Bulls shot an awful 10-32 from within five feet and much of that was thanks to Lopez’s commitment in the paint. If they can force Chicago into another offensive night this bad, the Nets have a serious shot to even this series up going back to Brooklyn.
