Saturday, December 29, 2007

Game 28 - Piston in the wind

So what you need to know:

The Nets are up 42-36 with 2 mins to go in the first half. They are shooting 58%. I'm saying to myself, jeez, shooting 58% and only up 6... That doesn't bode well.

Halftime score: Det 45-Nets 44. Nets are outshooting the Pistons 55-43% and LOSING.

Detroit comes out for the second half and go up by 5. Call time! No dice. The Nets take another embarassingly ill advised 3 point shot, miss, and Detroit goes up by 7. Then he calls time. Okay.

After the time out the Nets run a play and Josh Boone gets fouled. Misses both. Detroit gets rebound. Defensive 3 seconds. Pistons up 8. Then they score again. Detroit up 10.

At this point RJ gets the ball and looks over to Frank. RJ senses that the Nets are out of sync, in disarray and need to get coordinated again. You don't see this on tv, I'm sure. RJ asks Frank to call time. Frank turns his back on RJ and makes a motion, play on, play on.

This was the second time in a week that RJ has questioned the coaching.

Um, do you think the Nets, particularly RJ, are losing confidence in the coach?

By the end of the quarter it's 76-62 Detroit. Game over.

Frank made a big deal about how the first 3 minutes and last 3 minutes of every quarter are crucial to stopping the Pistons. Let's see how they did:

1st 1st 3 Det 11-4
1st last 3 Nets 6-5
2nd 1st 3 Nets 6-2
2nd last 3 Det 9-4
3rd 1st 3 Det 8-2
3rd last 3 Det 7-6 (Nets down 76-62)
4th 1st 3 Det 5-4
4th last 3 Det 10-8

Not only did the Nets barely win 2 of these mini-periods (by a combined 5 points), look at the end of the second-beginning of the third. A total point swing of 11 points. A conversion of a 6 point lead into a 5 point deficit.

Lawrence, if the ends and beginnings of quarters are so important, WHY DON'T YOU DO SOMETHING TO HELP YOUR TEAM DURING THIS TIME????

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