The Nets (16-37) look for their second win in a row and their first road win in 15 games as they take on the Charlotte Bobcats (22-30) tonight. Here’s a few keys of the game:
The Ugly Has to Stop: The Nets have played the Bobcats twice so far this year (both losses) and both games qualify as some of the worst Nets basketball we’ve seen this year. In the first game, they blew a comfortable 8-point lead with a few minutes left to fall 85-83. The follow-up game, could best be described as one of the ugliest games of the year, a 91-84 loss in OT. I know the Bobcats can play defense, but the Nets need to do much, much better than this offensively. If they did in either game, they’d probably have two wins under their belt because it’s not like the Bobcats have ever looked like the superior team.
Live by the Three, Die by the Three: I think a lot of people were happy to see the Nets hit a season high 12 three-pointers against NOLA on Wednesday, and with the return of Jordan Farmar, complimenting Sasha Vujacic and Anthony Morrow, I understand that. But more than a quarter of the team’s FG attempts (23 of 81) were threes and another 23 FG attempts were classified as long-twos by hoopdata. Compare that with only 13 FG attempts at the rim. Trying to score the bulk of your points on lower percentage jump shots is a recipe for disaster, and the Nets have to do a better job of … and this is like a broken record … get the ball down low to their big men.
And Favors?: Avery Johnson said he was going to play him more minutes going forward. Earlier in the week he said he was going to run more sets for the rookie. Let’s stop talking about this and do it. Favors progression is critical for this team headed into the summer. Otherwise, they’re never going to know what they have besides a trade chip, who is apparently not going to be enough to get them the player they really covet anyway.
