Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Game 82 - It is finished...

Nets lose to the Cs on the road. Not on TV (at least not Verizon, that I can tell). It was sorta kinda close, in a schoolyard kinda way. The Cs are the #1 Eastern seed. The Nets are going home.

Are the Celtics 32 games better than the Nets?

I wonder - Pierce has won 0 titles, Ray 0, KG 0. I'm not convinced that they can even win the East, much less the title. Then again, if this is the street ball league, who's gonna stop them?

It's funny - we talk NFL, we think coaches - Parcells, Bellichick, Landry, Lombardi... We talk baseball, we think managers - Lasorda, Pinella, Torre, Sparky... We talk hockey - Bowman, Arbour...

We talk NBA and the only coach we talk about is Phil, and maybe Pop, but mostly we talk talent. And not smart talent, not fundamentally sound talent - not, say, Steve Nash - but raw talent. Shaq. Kobe. Lebron.

Not that Shaq, Kobe or Lebron CAN'T be fundamentally sound, they certainly can. We see flashes. But mostly we see flashy.

Can the talent in the NBA be coached? Is the Lakers' success this year all about Pau Gasol?

In 1967 the 76ers got a new coach, Alex Hannum. He took his best player, one Wilt Chamberlain, aside and told him, look - you have all the records in the book. You've done amazing, gargantuan things. Yet you lack a championship ring. I have an idea that if, when the ball comes to you, instead of fighting off the double- and triple teams they throw up against you and shooting, you find the open man, or men!, they'll have easy shots, undefended shots, and we'll be unstoppable.

That's coaching. Imagine telling the league's greatest offensive player to stop scoring and start making assists. What was he, nuts?

Funny thing - Wilt listened. He led the team in assists and was 3rd in the NBA (a center!). The Sixers won 69 games and, most importantly, won the NBA - the only team to break the Celtics' stranglehold on the NBA championship in the 60s.

Tim Duncan is a great and heady player, and fundamentally sound. But I also have to think that he listens to Greg. And by listening to Greg, he sets the example, and then the rest of the team listens to Greg. The result? 4 championships.

I like watching San Antonio like I liked watching the Nets from 2002 thru 2006. Now we seem to have a street ball team.

I'm not interested in circus shots and flashy dunks. Championships are not garnered with circus shots and flashy dunks. A circus shot or a flashy dunk is worth no more points on the scoreboard than a dorky but fundamentally sound lay up.

I like people getting open. I like defense. I like boxing out. I like looking for the open man.

The basketball season for the Nets ended on that disastrous 0-9 stretch in January. Since then it's been street ball.

I don't like street ball.

If that's what the Nets have become, they've lost a season ticket holder.

Game 81 - Street Ball

Perhaps this is what bothers me about the contemporary NBA. I have railed pretty much all season against the poor quality in-game coaching of one Lawrence Frank. He has made strategic blunder after tactical blunder, he's tone deaf to his team's struggles and mechanistic in his substitution patterns.

Nonetheless, I watched tonite's game in amazement. Nets up early, go to sleep, down nearly 20 at the half, come back to take a late lead, make bonehead decisions, wind up going into overtime, go up by 8 within a minute left, win by 4.

Through it all, NEITHER coach has any impact on the game. Granted, both teams are done for the year, what incentive do they have. So it becomes a schoolyard game.

I was reading about Golden State's latest loss, something like coming back from down 16 to take a 15 point lead, and then losing. And I am struck - I don't remember this happening in the 60s, or the Magic/Bird/Dr J era, or even the Jordan era. I remember close games involving, at least, playoff teams, 2 point, 4 point, 6 point leads going back and forth. I remember good passing, even on breaks, boxing out, and above all, defense.

Not always. The mid-70s were fairly run and gun, as the ABA players and style were digested into the league. I remember strategy. I remember intelligent play - Oscar, Bradley, Lucas, West, Kareem, Russell, McHale, the Chief, etc.

I remember Kidd, as well, when he came here in 2002. It was a pleasure to watch because he imposed on the team a disciplined style of smart play. Maybe it was Eddie Jordan's Princeton like offense, on steroids with the athleticism of KMart, Kittles and RJ. It featured a lot of running, sure. But it was heady. With defense.

You see this now from one team - San Antonio. Is it the coach? Is it Duncan? Is it luck?

It ain't luck.

It's a commitment to fundamental basketball within the framework of today's incredible athletic talent.

Today's talent is clearly superior to any other era. I don't think that's debatable. Unfortunately, the NBA has become, as I have noted earlier, the Nothing But Ability league. No defense. No strategy. No in-game tactical soundness. Ability.

Brilliant moves, flashy dunks, great looking alley oops, incredible shots.

But for every flashy dunk is a missed foul shot, for every great looking alley oop is a bad decision, for every incredible shot is an "ill-advised" shot. I put that in quotes since I hear it most from Walt Frazier.

Walt Frazier... I was not a Knicks fan then - I was a Lakers fan. I couldn't stand him, as an opponent. But you had to respect his play - his intelligent play.

Frazier probably wouldn't have the size or talent to play in today's NBA. This is an amazing thing. Because Clyde could make nearly every current team a contender. Through sheer intelligence.

I digress (boy, do I digress)...

The point is, who listens to coaches today, anyway? Again, I can think of only one team, and it's the same one.

Frank had nothing to do with this victory, and would have had nothing to do with a loss, either. This was a street ball game.

Where's the Professor?

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Wanting the Team to Lose

A reader wondered aloud why any fan would purposely want their team to lose. I want to address that. Consider this cautionary tale:

From 1984-1989 the San Antonio Spurs had been quite like the Nets - a bad team that occasionally made the playoffs, only to be bounced out in the first round. (They actually made the playoffs with losing records twice, once with only 31 wins, the other with 35 - the latter after having made it at 41-41. sound familiar?)

After an abysmal 21 win season in 89, they got David Robinson in the draft, and immediately became contenders. Over the next 7 seasons they won 56, 55, 47, 49, 55, 62 and 59 games. Altho they made it to the Western Conference finals in 95, they never made it to the Finals. Then the Admiral got injured, out for the 97 season.

Had he not been injured, the Spurs very likely would have won at least 50 games in 97, probably 55, their average with him the previous 7 seasons. Still, without him they probably could have won at least 30 or 35. They were not that bad of a team.

Instead they went into the tank. A deep funk that cost their coach, Bob Hill, who had taken them to their only Western Conference Finals appearance, his job, even tho he did not have his star player for all but 6 games of the year.

This abysmal losing, this embarrassment of an underachieving team, gave the Spurs the first pick in the draft. They got one Tim Duncan. And Greg Popovich.

Since then the Spurs continued their regular season winning ways - winning high 50s or low 60s games a season (except for the strike shortened 99 season, when they won a league high 37 games. And winning 4 NBA titles.

How did the Celtics get Larry Bird? Going 29-53. That's how.

Now, if you were a Spurs fan on the eve of Game 77, in 1997, with your team at 20-57, and you had a crystal ball that showed the glory to come with Pop and Tim, but in order to get Tim you'd need to lose your last six, would you be rooting for your team to lose?

Or better - if you were 3-15 on the eve of Game 19, and your coach, who had just lead your to 62 and 59 wins, your first trip to the Conference finals, and probably more shots at it once the Admiral was healed, was to be fired, would you think that was high handed and unnecessary? Now, suppose you had that crystal ball and it said, look, there is a coach out there who will lead you to 4 titles in the next decade, but you have to flush the most successful coach you've ever had, even tho he's struggling this year in the absence of your best player, would you still think it was high handed and unnecessary?

Tuesday is the last home game of the season. I am going, bringing the family and I also have two other tickets. They're playing the Bobcats. They should win easily. I want them to win easily. I want to have fun.

I got these tickets, my first full season tickets for any sport, for a song this year. The same deal is available for next year. If they were still in playoff mode, it would be a slam dunk. If they had poor talent, I still would probably do it.

Right now, I am probably not gonna do it. And for one reason. The head coach, Lawrence Frank.

I'm sorry, but altho I don't like losing, I really hate it when games are lost unnecessarily. I get aggravated when I and most other fans in the stands are screaming for timeouts that never get called, timeouts that do get called when they are irrelevant or even counter productive. I get upset and angry when talented players that could help the team like Sean Williams sit on the bench and clear duds like Trenton Hassell get non-trivial playing time. In crucial situations. And then don't come thru.

My family has told me several times they don't like going to the games with me. I brood. I scowl. They are like I used to be - they cheer the team on, they try to give the team support late in games. They, to their credit, rarely want to leave early.

But they are sick of me and my negative attitude.

Know what? I'M sick of me and my negative attitude.

I don't want to be that way. Perhaps if the Nets decided to unload RJ and let Nenad go via free agency, perhaps if Devin Harris went down with an injury in the summer, or Josh Boone had to get a knee job that required him to miss the season, you know, the things that happened in 99 and 2000, my expectations would be set low, and Frank's stupidity wouldn't bother me. Perhaps his clutching onto timeouts like Gollum does the ring might actually come in handy on those rare nights when the Nets find themselves in the game with 2 minutes to go and needing a rare victory. Perhaps then.

This isn't fantasy. I remember the year 2000 when (I counted) 20 games came down to the last 2 minutes with them in the lead or down by 2 or less and they lost. That was hard to take. But the Nets were decimated with injuries. I had no expectations for the team to win more than the 31 they did win. They had a guy who never should have been coach. The owners pushed him into it. He left the NBA for good after that season. Marbury showed great heart in trying to lift that team single handedly.

I hated the losing but I wasn't negative. I wasn't, oh brother, here they go again. Or rather, here HE goes again.

This wasn't 20 years ago when the Nets had no talent, when they had traded away a potential Hall of Famer for a sure fire Hall of Shamer. This wasn't the days of the empty RAC. This wasn't the days of the Butch Beard embarrassment or the screaming John C. This was less than a decade ago. I was positive.

As recently as 2006 I had been positive. I laid the blame for their collapse to the eventual NBA Champion Heat at Cliff Robinson's doorstep. The Nets had nearly swept the Heat in the regular season, but nearly got swept out of the postseason by them. The Heat had a hot hand. They had Shaq. They had a hot Duane Wade playing way over his head, a game he had not evinced since. Okay. Retool and try again in 2007.

At the beginning of the 2007 season I told the guy who eventually sold me season tix this year that I "had a good feeling" about the upcoming season. But by mid-season I was getting disturbed by an unsettling trend. The Nets were losing a lot of games due to questionable coaching decisions.

In 2003 when the Nets cruised to the Finals and were about to face the Spurs, I was jubilant. For the first time in their NBA history they had a great shot at winning it all. The 2002 season had been miraculous, but they did not match up well with the Lakers. I had little expectation that they could win. But in 2003 it seem that things were set up for them.

In my opinion, then and now, Byron Scott single handedly squandered that chance for them. With bafflingly abysmal coaching decisions.

A team plays well. It's a close game. Your best player has the ball in his hands to take the last shot but misses, and you lose by 1. That's basketball.

A team comes out for the championship game and is just cold as Iceland. They lose in a romp. That's basketball.

At the end of a close game that can go either way, a player tries to call a timeout when you have none left, the other team gets a technical and the ball, and you lose. That's basketball.

A team is in the finals, Game 7, on the road, and a player who has been doing it all season for you goes unbelievably cold. Time and again he takes shots and misses while the other team capitalizes. You lose the championship. The coach says, He's done it for us all year - I wasn't about to take it out of his hands this late in the season. It was his to win or lose. We win or lose with him. Ok, maybe. That one hurts and is questionable, but at least he leaves it up to the guy who brought them there. That's basketball.

But a coach that allows big leads to be squandered while his team is clearly floundering, a coach who clutches onto his timeouts so that he can have them at the end of the game when it is too late and using them only humiliates the team further, a coach that sits a red hot player when you have a 9 point lead going into the last quarter of a Game Six after having defaulted on at least 2 earlier games by not playing your only 7 footer against a team with 2 talented ones, those are not basketball inevitabilites - they are reversible, avoidable bad decisions. Unforgivable mental coaching errors. Stubbornness. Unwillingness to coach the game in front of their eyes. Those coaches are not basketball coaches. They are liabilities.

The Nets lost 30 games this year when they had considerable leads deep in the game. 30. And in those 30, Lawrence Frank acted in ways that virtually ensured those would be losses. He did NOTHING to stop them. In fact, he did everything to make the inevitable. And if that were not bad enough, forced his team to play foul ball, doing nothing but elongating the sting and increasing the humiliation.

He did a similar thing last year, before the trading deadline. The team had struggled in the beginning when finally they got to 20-20 before going on the road for a West Coast swing. The history of the team on those swings, even in the glory years of 2002 and 2003, had not been good. Yet there they were, with the lead with under a minute, 3 games in a row. They lost all 3.

I'm sorry, you can't tell me the coach was not involved in those losses. He was. All 3.

Kidd had seen enough. He wanted out. Thorn could not pull the trigger on a deal. After the trading deadline Kidd willed the team to the playoffs. Ok, one bad.

But here we were again, for the 4th consecutive season, a surprisingly bad start, a team "searching for an identity". A good coach establishes an identity. A team does not have to search for one.

Especially a team loaded with talent.

I began to see, in that dismal 2007 season, that Frank was costing the team several victories. Despite that, their talent dispatched the overrated Raptors with some ease and had a shot at making it past the vastly overrated Cavs to reach at least the Conference Finals. Talent did that. But Frank undermined it. They bowed out in 6, with two of those 4 losses easily avoidable and winnable. They should have won that series in 6, not lose it in 6.

Perhaps they could come together again with a healthy Krstic and a new season. But the 2008 season began just as the previous 3 - a surprisingly bad start, and this time against poor struggling teams at home. Once again, the talk was about searching for an identity. 30 games into the season, still searching for an identity.

Mark my words - if Frank stays, as he is likely to do, the Nets will start the year just as they have the past 4, unaccountably struggling against teams with lesser talent, losing in blowouts to good teams. Someone, probably RJ if he is not traded, will say "We're still trying to discover our identity as a team".

A pattern has been established, and by then, what would the only common denominator be?

Not JKidd. Not Vince Carter. Not RJ (remember, he was injured most of 2005 after picking up the slack for the injured JKidd at the beginning of 2005).

The common denomiator is Lawrence Frank.

This is not just statistical. If you watch all the games, like I do, it's easy to see the patterns. The announcers see all the games as well, and altho they are trained and compensated not to call out players and coaches, you could hear the mystification about why certain players are sitting, why timeouts were not called, why the team should not have an identity deep into the season.

Players make mistakes. In the heat of the battle, physical mistakes are made. Occassionally mental mistakes are made. If mental mistakes are made with frequency the coach is very quick to sit the player. That's basketball.

Coaches make mistakes, but none of them are physical. They are all mental. Sure, sometimes you gotta roll the dice and things don't pan out. Sometimes you make errors in judgement and you deal with the consequences.

But when mental mistakes are made not just with frequency but in a predictable pattern, that coach needs to sit.

This coach needs to sit. He is not helping the team; he's hurting it. In the standings, in the locker room, in the handling of its talent, in its prospects. He is not learning from his mistakes. He is not helping his players learn, because he himself does not learn.

I know the realities - I've written about them at length. The owner does not care. The president cannot act on his own. The coach has 2 more years on his contract and the owner doesn't want to pay him for nothing. His grandiose development scheme, of which the team is just a pawn, is floundering, and he is in no mood for basketball, except to get them in that goddam arena in the hope that that might put things back over the top. The last thing he wants to do in that atmosphere is part with money and get nothing in return.

But having a hamstrung team be deconstructed and embarrassed in an empty building is not something. Losing $30 million a year (per the NYT) is getting less than nothing.

There is talent here. A starting five of Carter, RJ, Harris, Boone and a healthy Nenad, with Boki, Swift, Sean Williams and Marcus Williams in the wings is quite a good and deep team. With decent, not great, but decent, coaching, this is a 50 win team, especially in a weak East. That might fill the building more. That will get you to the playoffs. If nothing else, that will make the team much more attractive when you sell the team in 3 years, 2 if your project collapses.

That is, you eat $5 million but lose only $20 a year. That's a net (sic) savings of $5 million.

I don't get Sean Williams sitting. I don't get Trent Hassell playing. And I don't get Thorn thinking that Frank is a good coach. All I do get is that the owner doesn't give a Ratner's ass about basketball. He cares about real estate development.

So Bruce - look, man, your project is dangling by a thread. You're losing $30 mil a year. You can save conservatively $5 mil of that just by doing the right thing - lose the coach.

I don't want the Nets to lose, per se. I want them to lose the coach. Losing might give them a better draft status, but if Frank remains that talent will just be squandered, wasted. However, if losing meaningless games at the end of a mean season results in losing a losing coach and giving a talented team a better shot at winning, who wouldn't want that?

Game 80 - Seven

The Nets beat the even more pathetic and shorthanded Bucks tonight, 111-98. In a way, it's a pity - perhaps if the Nets had completely let go of the rope for the season, Thorn might be convinced to "go in another direction" with respect to the coach.

He continued his baffling exile of Sean Williams, a player who could really help out the team, in favor of Trent Hassell, a player who cannot and does not. SWill was the only non-phantom (Van Horn) non-injured (Boone) player not to get out on the court despite the obvious blow out last night in Toronto. He played exactly 1 minute in a game in Cleveland where his presence, energy and shot blocking might have made up for Frank's bonehead coaching. Last night he was again the only non-injured, non-phantom player not to play, even when Frank emptied the bench at the end. I think it's safe to say that one of those two will not be here next year. Regrettably, the Nets will probably keep Frank and flush Williams, one of the very, very few bright spots in this Franked up season.

Nonetheless, Frank gets props for the Rule of Seven - If your team has a double digit lead, and it gets cut to 7, call time out. Stop the bleeding. Stop the momentum. Set up a play. End their hope.

Imagine if he had done that vs Cleveland... Or over 20 other games in this travesty of a season...

After a close first half they had built up a 15 point lead with 10 to go in the 4th. But by 8:27 it was down to 89-80. Marcus (I'm the One Who Gets to Play) Williams took an ill-advised 3 pointer (which, btw, the Nets do a lot when they are losing leads - instead of slowing the game down and working it in, looking for a high percentage shot, they seem to want the heroic dagger, which nearly never comes - a mark of a poorly coached team), the Bucks get the rebound. I'm saying to the TV, Call timeout. Call timeout.... The Bucks score. Lead down to 7 with just under 8 to play. Call timeout. Call timeout!

Devin Harris brings the ball up. Call timeout! CALL TIMEOUT!

Then what to my wondering eyes does appear but a TIMEOUT on the court of the tiny reindeer!

Good. That's the right thing to do.

And it was the right thing to do. The Nets set up a play. Get RJ an open rhythm jumper. 9 point lead, momentum broken. Back and forth a little 7-9, 7-10, 7-8, but before you know it 3 minutes have been burned off the clock. When the Nets go up by 13 at the 5 minute mark, everyone knows that this game is over.

It wasn't that the Bucks had run out of gas trying to catch up, as the coach's excuse goes - it's just that Frank didn't give them the gasoline can as he has so frequently this season. His team had amassed a good sized lead fairly late in the game and then started to struggle. Okay, so PRESERVE AS MUCH OF IT AS YOU CAN without calling an unnecessary time out. The best last place to do that is the 7 point mark. (Nine is better, but seven is the limit.)

This is not a secret or a big discovery on my part. Most coaches have a feel for this. That's why you don't notice them coaching.

You notice brain boy coaching because of his incredible tone deafness to this obvious fact as he clutches his timeouts for that magical last minute so he can demoralize his team even more. (How many games did we see this year when he did just that? 30? See below!)

But tonite he calls a timeout immediately when the lead shrinks to 7 and winds up winning a laugher. On the road.

He could have won 10 more games like this this year, very conservatively. A 10 victory swing and the Nets are 43-37 and the 4 seed in the East. Very conservatively. If he won half of those games where his stunningly stupid coaching did not come into play they are 48-32, with two shots at winning 50. That's how much Frank has cost this team this year.

He is responsible for at least 10-15 losses with poor in game coaching. He -not a disaffected Kidd (and exactly why was he disaffected?), nor an injured Carter, nor a disappearing Jefferson, nor a major trade - is the reason the Nets will finish with their worst record since 2001. He is.

He came in with a 14 game winning streak. After that his record is 176-176. And that's with The Big Three. And that's with a 49 win season, ie, a +16 win season in the middle.

The Nets have a talented roster, with potentially a deep bench, minus Hassell and plus Sean Williams. Even without Kidd this is at least a 47-55 win team. They are 25th in the league in offense, 23rd in defense.

He should be gone after this season. He brings nothing.

Rod Thorn knows that. The question is, does Bruce Ratner know?

And does he even care?

Game 79 - Goodbye Postseason

In 2002 the Nets had visited the postseason only briefly a few times before. Their longest NBA postseason run had been 5 seasons in a row, back in the "glory" years of the early 80s, when they lost in the first round every time except 84, when they bowed out in the second. (They did make the postseason 7 times in a row in the ABA, winning it twice.)

Their last post season run had been 92-94, when they lost in the first round all 3 times (Cleveland twice and the Knicks). Their last post season appearance had been in 98 against the Bulls, with the predictable and by now traditional first round exit.

In comes Kidd into a group of demoralized, injury prone but very talented young players and BOOM (thanks John Madden) - two Finals appearances in a row, one which they could well have won, four in a row after that, during which they made it past the first round twice.

This will go down as the first Golden Era of the Nets. The Jason Kidd Era.

Kidd is gone. So are the Nets.

Before he came the Nets were an embarrassment. As if to verify and drive home that point, the Nets were an embarrassment tonite.

Tonite, after amassing an 11 point lead in the 2nd, just let go of the rope, as the selfsame Jkidd opined earlier in the season.

That made it official - no postseason for the Nets.

Despite an incredibly weak East, despite the fact that .500 (like last year) would give you the
7 seed and 2 over (like 2005) would give you the 6, this team had underperformed and been miscoached so badly that even that was not possible. Atlanta will make the playoffs with under 40 wins. The Nets could not even manage 40. With this roster, JKidd notwithstanding.

Despite just being cannon fodder for the carpetbagger Celtics, even that modest goal could not be reached.

A fitting end to a bad season.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Game 78 - This Jerk

The banner came on the screen - $299 Season Tickets. That's what I have. I was enjoying this game. The Cavs are a very flawed team with a very good player. Not great. Not yet. But very good.

The Nets have been playing well. Up by 4 at the half. Last 2 minutes is a wash. Fine. Middle of the third now and the Nets are up 14. I call the kids into the room.

Hey guys, have you had fun with us having season tix? Yeah! they both say in unison. Do you think I should get them for next year?

Only one of them has an objection - the older one says "it's a long commute...". I'm surprised that the younger one hasn't said "They stink!" the way he has been saying quite a bit lately. So should I guys? Yeah!

"But they need to get a new coach!" the younger one opines.

Granted, he reflects what I say, since he's 10....

Cavs begin to whittle away, but with 2 minutes left in the third, the nnets are up by 9. Nine. N-I-N-E.

With 49 seconds left in the qtr, the score is TIED. THEN AND ONLY THEN DOES BRAIN BOY CALL TIME OUT.

He does NOT know how to in game coach. A breeze turns into a rout. IN ONE MINUTE.

Right at the moment its six minutes into the quarter. SIX MINUTES. The Nets have scored exactly 3 points. THREE. And are now down by 8, a 24-5 run. 24-5!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND THIS JERK HAS NOT CALLED A TIME OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HEY ROD - THIS TEAM HAS NO HOPE WITH THIS JERK AS ITS COACH!!!!!!!!!!!

New graphic - Second chance points 11-11. It had been 11-3 Nets.

The Nets are now down 10 with 5:25 left to play. Time out. I don't know who called it but for the Nets it's WAY TOO LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN'T EXPECT A STRUGGLING TEAM TO MAKE UP A 10 POINT DEFICIT WITH 5:25 LEFT IN THE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He does EVERYTHING to undermine the confidence of this team. He does NOTHING to help it.

He is a complete in-game failure, a lost soul, a dufus, a jerk.

(Another graphic splashed across the screen - the Nets are shooting 8% in the 4th... Why do the Nets have timeouts left? Why aren't other players out there?? Nevermind, the Nets are down 14 now and just gave the Cavs their second straight old fashioned 3 point play. There's 3:40 left. God, jerk, aren't you tired of this? When are you gonna figure out it's YOU, not "we" - YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU.)

Another graphic - the Nets are shooting, right now, with less than 2 minutes to go, 1-15. ONE FOR FIFTEEN. Do you thing maybe their confidence is shot? They're now down by 17, as another graphic shows they've missed their last 17 shots.

AND FRANK CALLS TIMEOUT! CAN YOU EFFING BELIEVE IT??????

WHAT GAME IS THIS BUFFOON WATCHING???????????????????

Final - 104-83, a 21 point loss. It was once 67-53. Since that point they were outscored 51-16. FIFTY FREAKING ONE TO SIXTEEN.

There is no way, NO EFFING WAY, this dunce of a supposed coach should be allowed even to finish the season.

FIRE HIM NOW!

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Game 77 - A surprising win

So I went. Next to last home game. Last one isn't for 10 days. I was tired. But I had the tickets and decided to go. My youngest son would rather go to a birthday party that wasn't going to be fun than watch the Nets lose again. My wife stayed home with him. My other son Jeff went with me.

Before I left I decided to try and find positive things and focus on them. I was gonna write that in this blog before I went so that it was documented. But when I tried to envision what could possibly be positive, I lost momentum.

The Nets started the game well, which is always a treat, but usually the light before the storm. And sure enough, after having built up an 8 point lead, they started to falter. Then Frank did something unaccountable - he made reasonable coaching decisions. Like calling time out.

And he did it not once, not twice but 3 times. In the first half. Each time the team responded and stopped the bleeding. That's why you do that - to stop the other team's momentum and refocus your team to start some of your own. When he coaches like that, against a team fighting for playoff positioning without sitting anyone, you can actually envision some hope.

But I have no confidence that he is changing his ways.

On the other hand, Al Iannazone hinted that if the Nets finish poorly, he could be gone, despite what Rod Thorn has said. So in a way I wanted them to collapse.

I don't believe the Nets have a future with this guy as coach. But if he would just in-game coach like tonite, you could imagine the talent on this team coming out.

He did play Hassell unaccountably long, and at weird moments. He did sit Sean Williams too long as well. But eventually he put in Sean and left him in even as SWill picked up two quick fouls.

The Nets let it get close and actually fell behind by a point in the third, closing it with a 2 point lead. Then they took off at the beginning of the fourth, and before you knew it they had an 11 point lead with 5 minutes to go.

A well coached team would have made it a laugher, but as it was it got a little dicey, letting Toto get to 8 down. Some sloppy back and forth coupled with a great block by Williams and a great charge take by Trent Hassell from Bosh allowed the Nets to maintain a 9 point margin at the buzzer.

Wouldn't it be a blast if the Nets could play well for the rest of the season, 5 nice efforts? It might take the sting out of a really abysmal and bitterly disappointing season...

We'll see...

Game 76 - Mail call!

VC sat out. They played in Detroit.

They mailed it in. Down 16-6 just 7 minutes in, and they were done.

And they are done.

Game 75 - Another Loss

I had donate these tickets to a charity silent auction back in February, when JKidd was still on the team. At the time the 76ers were struggling near the bottom of the standings. I expected the Nets to rally after the All-Star break and make the playoffs, and I saw this game as being an easy and uninteresting win for them.

Didn't quite work out that way. Kidd was gone in a couple of days. The Nets tanked on the Texas Swing. The 76ers realized that it was indeed Iverson who had been holding them back all those years and were among the hottest teams in the NBA. The Sixers are now the FIVE seed in the East, two games over .500. I didn't even think the Nets could make it over .500 back then!

So now the Nets have accepted their role as a lousy team. They were tied at the half and only down 5, altho they ended the quarter on a patented 4-7 run by the Sixers to put them in that hole. They got it to 93-91 with 4:15 to go, when Philly did a remarkable, un-Frank-like thing - they called timeout.

From that point, the 76ers cruised, immediately burying a 3 and finishing 15-8.

Now End The Season.