Sixers 90 – Nets 83
They point to missed shots. They point to lack of energy. They point to getting the stuffing knocked out of them inside and underneath.
At least the Nets aren’t pointing at each other. Yet.
“Sometimes you get in one of these ruts and you’ve just got to find a way out of it. It’s not going to be easy,” said Jason Kidd after the Nets (35-18) slid to their third winnable loss in four games. “Once you get in a rut, you can’t question your teammates. You’ve got to pull up even closer and support one another. That would be a good memory out of this.”
Well, just about anything would be better than recollections of yesterday’s dud, a nationally-televised 90-83 defeat to the Sixers. Philadelphia avenged a 26-point blowout 11 days before by outworking the Nets, particularly in the fourth quarter. Making the defeat more bitter was the venue: it came at the Meadowlands where the Nets, now 23-3 at home, have been virtually invincible.
“If we lose at home to Denver, it’s a loss. That’s all that counts,” said Kenyon Martin (17 points, five rebounds), back in the lineup after sitting one game with a sore knee. “We knew they were going to come out like that.”
The Sixers, in Keith Van Horn’s return to the Meadowlands, came out with passion and hustle. The game was tight from the start. Down six, the Nets, who played zone much of the afternoon, seemed to take over at 66-60 with a 14-2 run in the latter stages of the third quarter, featuring five of Kidd’s 21 points.
But in the fourth, it came apart after the game progressed to a 70-70 knot. While the Sixers got scores from Allen Iverson (32 points) and Eric Snow (12 points) and two free throws from Kenny Thomas (7 rebounds), the Nets slipped and slopped through three straight turnovers, two by Kidd who had four in the fourth quarter and eight in the game. After going up 76-70, then 78-73, the Sixers (28-24 and winners of three straight) continued to punish the Nets on the boards.
“It wasn’t indicated by the score, but that was a physical whupping,” said Byron Scott. “You’ve got to understand who they are. You can’t do that at 11:30 a.m. when you walk into the arena. You can’t do that five minutes before tipoff. You’ve got to understand who you are playing and I don’t think our guys are understanding that. From the very beginning of this game, they were knocking the [bleep] out of us.”
Ex-Net Derrick Coleman (15 points, 16 rebounds) supplied a gut punch at 3:40 when he scored a putback on the Sixers’ fourth shot in the sequence to make it 80-73. The Nets closed to three but then Coleman scored another second chance – his fifth followup score of the game – and Van Horn (9 points, foul trouble) hit a turnaround at 1:03 for an 84-77 lead. That negated two desperation 3-pointers by Kidd (around a Snow basket) that brought the Nets within three again at :23.4.
Now the Nets, guilty of 21 turnovers that led to 29 Sixers points, must try to determine why they’ve beaten only the wretched Bulls since the break.
“We’re still confident in our ability as a team [but] offensively, we just couldn’t get shots down. The story today was rebounding,” said Richard Jefferson.
“You can’t play 23 seconds on defense and then let them come in and get an offensive rebound,” assessed Lucious Harris. “The last few games we came out not aggressive. You’ve got to be concerned.”