 Deron Williams 3-11 FG | 3 REB | 1 AST | 10 PTS | -22 Is this what a “grumpy” Deron Williams looks like? This was not the same type performance that we saw last night. Yesterday, his assist numbers in the first half were down mainly because his teammates weren’t hitting his open looks. Tonight, Williams looked clumsy (6 turnovers) and he clearly couldn’t find his shot (3-11). I’m really hoping that his hand isn’t anything to worry about, but I really don’t have any other explanation for his performance tonight. Stay tuned with that. |
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 Anthony Morrow 1-5 FG | 1 REB | 0 AST | 3 PTS | -13 You’d think that after a bad three quarters of basketball yesterday, Morrow would come out fired up and ready to roll. You’d be wrong. Instead, we watched a terrible shooting performance and typical (AKA also terrible) defensive performance from #22. Morrow was off all night and couldn’t really hit anything. This is another perplexing factor in the first two games of the season. In eight quarters so far, Anthony Morrow, usually a lights out shooter, has played well in one. This isn’t good for a team who is already treading water offensively with the loss of Brook Lopez. |
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 Damion James 0-4 FG | 3 REB | 0 AST | 0 PTS | -24 Coming off a career game yesterday on the defensive side of the ball, Damion James was invisible all night. Aside from 3 defensive rebounds, James did nothing in over 23 minutes of floor time. James is supposed to be a player who is pretty good at everything. Yesterday, this was true. Tonight, it was the opposite. |
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 Kris Humphries 4-8 FG | 6 REB | 0 AST | 11 PTS | -18 Comparing the stats from tonight and yesterday shows an obvious difference in level of play. However, there isn’t a statistic on hustle. Despite not dominating the glass or paint like I predicted he would, Humphries was the most invested player on the court (with the exception of the rook). This is one thing I love about Hump–even if he isn’t putting up a double-double performance, he’s always giving a complete effort. He dives and fights for loose balls, goes up aggressively in the paint, draws hard fouls and is always in play for a rebound. Tonight, it didn’t work out as well as it could have, but he still gets a B- for effort from me. |
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 Johan Petro 0-2 FG | 3 REB | 0 AST | 0 PTS | -18 I’m not going to grade Mehmet Okur, but what’s frustrating about Petro is that he probably is the best healthy center on the Nets roster at this point. So basically, as much as this guy sucks, we have to watch him until someone (PLEASE DEAR GOD MEHMET OKUR) gets more in sync with the offense. Petro did so little that he was a detriment to the team. He missed open looks from Deron and couldn’t grab any offensive boards off his own misses in the paint. Bottom line: if you can’t score, can’t rebound and can’t guard any of the Hawks centers, then you shouldn’t be a starting center. |
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 MarShon Brooks 5-12 FG | 3 REB | 1 AST | 17 PTS | -15 The one bright spot of the evening, MarShon Brooks played pretty great considering the circumstances. The numbers were there (17 points), but MarShon also played with great hustle, fighting for loose balls and taking hard fouls. He also had a couple of nice turn-around jumpers and had some pretty good shots in traffic. If Anthony Morrow can’t get it together son, I don’t think it would hurt to put the kid in for a few extra minutes a game. He’s only going up from here. |
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Five thoughts on the game
- 1. The Nets are tired. I stand corrected. I thought the comeback win over the Wizards would build the Nets some momentum going into a (hopefully) rusty Hawks team. In fact, just the opposite happened. These Nets are burned out and don’t have enough team chemistry to just go out and wing it right now. Unfortunately, the Hawks were completely ready for an exhausted Nets team and took full advantage of it. I don’t think this is the team we are going to see all season, but the Nets need to start taking advantage of their days off if they want to keep up during this incredibly difficult schedule.
- 2. MarShon Brooks. It’s tough to talk about bright spots after a game like this, but the rookie played some pretty good basketball tonight. A valiant effort from him. Brooks displayed a great jump shot from all over the court and in traffic. One thing you have to give MarShon credit for was his inability to become intimidated on the court. He played confidentially. Not every one of his shots went in, but it’s pretty clear that Avery likes what Brooks brings and his field goal percentage is only going to get better from here. This could be a fun guy to watch in the coming months.
- 3. Speaking of improving field goal percentage, the Nets need to improve their field goal percentage! Look, I’m all for a breakout rookie performance, but when the #25 pick in a bad draft scores the most points on your team (by a pretty good margin considering who plays on the team), that’s not a good sign for your offensive production. Anthony Morrow and Deron Williams especially need to start making their shots. Morrow, the teams designated sharp shooter, has had one redeeming-ly bad and one bad game, while Deron has had two below-average shooting percentage games. I don’t care who the Nets are playing, shooting 31% from the field is completely unacceptable. This team has a lot of work cut out for them, but this should be priority number one.
- 4. Maybe the Rock should start to boo Kris Humphries? After a lights out performance last night from the Hump, he comes up short against Atlanta. Smith, Horford, even Radmoanovic and Pachulia proved to be too much for Humphries to handle. He wasn’t grabbing boards and wasn’t protecting the basket like he did yesterday. As I said in his player rating, he played hard and gave forth a lot of effort, but Kris Humphries is going to need a little more than boos to get him motivated. Until Brook Lopez comes back, he is going to have to put up huge games for the Nets every single night.
- 5. How worried should we be about Deron Williams’ hand? We saw Deron’s scoring go down last year when he injured his wrist. Just a game after grabbing his hand in pain, Deron puts up a pretty lousy day of shooting and passing. Not even a sold out Prudential Center could get him fired up, and I’m really hoping that this isn’t going to be an issue with him. We clearly didn’t get to see the same player we saw yesterday, and until he comes back with another A+ plus performance, I’m going to remain slightly worried. It’s the nervous Nets fan in me.
