GameFlow, Roundball Mining Company, Devin Harris Interview, Brook Lopez Interview, Lawrence Frank Interview
This is where Coach Lawrence Frank loses me. You are up against a big and physical team with maybe the best SF with his back to the basket on the block, and you go small for a large portion of the game? That just doesn’t make sense to me, now I understand with Brook Lopez in foul trouble for most of the night, you can’t put Brook and Sean Williams in the game together, but you need to get a bigger body than Trenton Hassell on Kenyon Martin. Yes, we know Josh Boone is limited, but in this game, you need him out there just because he is a big-body, and with Boone playing Martin, that allows you to put Trenton Hassell on Carmelo Anthony.
Speaking of Carmelo as soon as the Nets went small the Nuggets immediately went to him in the post. 4 possessions in the block resulted in 3 buckets and a trip to the foul line. Lawrence Frank then called a timeout and switched back to Hassell on Carmelo, and then around 5 minutes later the Nets went small again, and the Nuggets went right to Carmelo on the block. If the Nuggets can see it, if the announcers can see it, if I can see it, then why can’t Lawrence Frank see it? With these mismatches the Nuggets had, they scored 60 points in the paint. 60!
Lawrence Frank always talks about match-ups, and he likes to adjust his roster to what the other teams throw out there, so it was interesting to see Lawrence Frank go small when it really made absolutely no sense.
This isn’t all on Lawrence Frank though, nobody came out and played hard, and from the start the game just had the feel of a scrimmage to me for some reason. Brook Lopez picked up two real silly fouls in the first half, and so did Chris Douglas-Roberts (I believe he got 2 of them trying to cover Carmelo in the post). Maybe I got spoiled, it is funny to think about an 0-13 team spoiling their fans, but it did happen. I sat on my couch and flipped on the game not expecting to win, but expecting the team to put up a real good fight. That is what makes this team fun to watch right now, you see them going hard and fighting, you feel good as a Nets fan. I do get a little critical from time to time (ok a lot of the time), but as a fan up until last night, the Nets have been fun to watch. It just seemed like they were just going through the motions most of the game and the last quarter and a half was basically running back and forth and whoever got the first pass after half-court put up a shot. The Nets got the lead down to 10 at one point in the fourth against the reserves, but Carmelo, J.R. Smith, and Chauncey remained on the bench, the Nuggets reserves turned it on and extended the lead again. That’s how bad it was, the Nuggets reserves weren’t playing hard against the Nets. The team has played all year, and I guess they can have one off night, they are in Portland tomorrow, so let’s see if they can get the effort back up. No key plays today since they pretty much sucked, there were are a few bullets though:
- At one point Sean Williams got a block to start a fast break and Terrence Williams finished it off with a slam. The Nets showed life on that play, and it might have been the only time the whole game.
- Early in the 4th Carmelo picked up his 5th foul. George Karl was going to take him out, but Carmelo waived him off and left him in for a little while. Good to see how serious the Nuggets were taking the Nets.
- 60 points in the paint is a lot.
- Terrence Williams might have been the lone bright spot. He wasn’t settling for too many jumpers. Took 11 shots, which is still too much, but he is cutting them down. He made 5 of them and was attacking the basket.
