LOS ANGELES – Their opponents have been averaging more than 100 points while shooting with high-percentage accuracy usually reserved for All-Star Games. They’d lost three straight games for the first time this season. Coaches and players found it necessary to huddle for a team meeting following a defense-free defeat.
The Nets had to be thinking, “Woe unto us. There is nothing but mayhem, sorrow, destruction.” Right?
Actually, the Nets’ response was more like, “Been there, done that.”
As they prepared for another Finals rematch with the Lakers, this time at the Staples Center here last night, the Nets – 2-5 in their previous seven games, with the only triumphs over wretched Toronto – reminded all outside their own immediate circle that they went through similar hard times last season.
Two West Coast road trips produced a 2-7 record then, including an 0-4 trip (the Nets were 1-6 on their two big West treks this year entering L.A.). After the 105-97 defeat at Golden State on Thursday, the Nets seemed remarkably calm and purposeful. Their overriding message to themselves? Stick together and ride this out.
“We’re all right,” insisted Kenyon Martin. “It’s the same thing we went through last year out here and y’all started to write us off. Teams go through it, man. We’ll be all right.”
Last year, times were even tougher. A locker-room fight broke out in Portland between Martin and Richard Jefferson with Aaron Williams interceding. Yet somehow, the Nets believe they grew from all that and are better equipped to handle adversity this year.
It’s not like they want to go through this – surrendering 100 points five times in seven games and losing all five. But they realize this is not the end of civilization as we know it.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a crisis,” coach Byron Scott said. “Is it time to be to the point where you’re worried a little about our approach to the game on the defensive end? Yeah, definitely, because this is not how we play.”
Said similar stuff last year, too.
“We never turned on each other,” Jefferson said. “We love each other to death. One time … not [Portland], I’m talking about the playoffs. Portland was not an issue. I’m talking about the playoffs, at the end of the playoffs last year, that was the only time I think there was frustration. Other than that, we’re close-knit. We have so much respect for our leader.”
Jefferson referred to comments after the Finals when Martin publicly questioned the desire of some (read: Keith Van Horn). The leader, of course, is Jason Kidd, who spearheaded the locker-room meeting after Golden State. Scott, upset but composed, spoke to his team. Then team leaders addressed the group.
“It was my meeting and I talked,” Scott said. “There wasn’t a lot of other conversations. I just said what I saw … and what I want to see as a coach. We haven’t done it the last few games.
“I’m not upset. The reason I was in there so long was because I asked them, ‘You tell me what’s going on.’ I just want us to talk and find out what it is that we can do right now to get this ship going back in the right direction.”
Kidd, whose 41-point effort – his high game as a Net – was wasted, reminded teammates Golden State represented just one game, that 40 still remained and that, yes, the Nets have experienced this already.
“As a team, we’ve been here before,” Kidd said. “Last year, we struggled out West and people started to write us off. I think this is a good gut check.”