Boy, this was bad. This wasn’t just regular, sometimes-the-Nets-aren’t-good bad, this was the Nets dropping the fewest points in any half this season bad, down 24 at the half bad, Kidd pulling his starters with over five minutes left in the third quarter bad.
On the one hand, it’s understandable — the Nets are on the road against one of the best teams in the NBA and a league-best offense, while the Nets are sparse defensively outside of Kevin Garnett.
On the other hand, they came out with this effort against a team on the second half of a back-to-back missing LaMarcus Aldridge (arguably their best player next to Damian Lillard) and allowed the Trail Blazers open season in the paint. The Blazers never gave an inch and poured on for 48 minutes, and the Nets never had an answer.
Looked quick again, but only for brief spurts. Drew a foul on a three-pointer and played well off the ball, but once the game started getting out of hand, his energy on defense dropped noticeably.
Picked up two quick fouls in the first three minutes, and though Kidd let him stay in for a bit, didn’t play well enough to stay in. His most memorable shots were a short jumper that ended terribly short, and a missed reverse layup that didn’t draw rim. Though who am I to judge: just by playing, he’d already won.
Somehow took 11 field goal attempts without taking one memorable one.
Attacked the lane well in the first half, getting into the lane and hitting three layups at the rim — two in the exact same crafty-but-effective two-dribble, drive, and right-hand-over-Robin-Lopez style, but was a non-factor after.
Shockingly quiet minutes from Garnett, though in his defense, he played about a quarter’s worth of minutes in this one.
Why was he wearing a white jersey and a wig? Oh… wait… never mind.
It was all downhill after a great dunk in the lane; fired an unnecessary loose-ball floater and four other missed shots. Unfortunately, while his offense is up-and-down, his defense is more often down than up, and the Blazers had their way in the paint with Blatche on the floor in the first half, building their blowout lead.
Came in earlier than usual after Shaun Livingston’s foul trouble. He grabs rebounds well for a small forward, but not for a power forward. Had arguably the only pre-blowout Nets highlight, a pretty steal at Damian Lillard’s expense & slam on the other end.
Give him credit for being one of the few Nets that can play perimeter defense, but he’s also not a point guard.
His most memorable throw to the rim was an alley-oop to Mason Plumlee, which probably isn’t good. Did hit two threes.
In his illustrious debut, Thornton promptly bricked two threes badly in the first half, before hitting a layup in his second stint on the floor. He’s listed at 6’4″, which begs the question how tall he is when he walks down the rest of the staircase. Began hitting jump shots in the blowout in Terry-like fashion.
Didn’t really do much to deter Portland from attacking the rim in garbage time, but he DID set a bunch of screens to get his teammates wide open, so there’s that.
Give him credit for relentlessly dunking on rims even when everyone else thought the game was out of hand.
He’d be a solid backup point guard in the D-League.
