By FRED KERBER
We loved Jason Kidd’s assessment of where to start fixing the Nets.
“Sit down and close your eyes and pick anything you want. You can start anywhere. You can close your eyes and pick one and that’s where you can start to improve on,” Kidd said. They don’t protect the ball. They don’t guard the 3-point line. Lately, teams are kicking them in the gut on the offensive glass. A game without an early 10-point deficit is as rare as babbling brooks in the Sahara.
Aside from that they are solid.
Happens every year, we’re told.
So does hurricane season.
This is getting old very quick.
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Now they go to Cleveland tomorrow and LeBron, who practiced today, could be playing – likely will be playing (most thought he would play in Boston Sunday). Technically, he’s a game-time decision. The Cavs have their own issues – they’ve lost three straight, two minus LeBron (and he was injured, sprained finger, in the other). But they still have pieces that stomped the Nets off the glass in the second round of the playoffs.
Remember the second round?
That was where Kidd, the point guard, led the Nets in rebounding in 5-of-6 games. Where the Cavs outrebounded the Nets by 43.0-39.0, including a 12.0-7.7 edge on the offensive glass. Because the Nets were so out-sized, they ran out and signed Jamaal Magloire.
Remember Jamaal Magloire?
The Nets have to try him at this point, especially with Zydrunas Ilgauskas (a great name to remember for the alphabet game) and Drew Gooden looming tomorrow. Coach Lawrence Frank loves his small, quicker lineups. But they are getting muscled around. Magloire had two earlier starts and didn’t distinguish himself. But he did have a 12-rebound game off the bench with decent minutes earlier. It can’t hurt to try. Unless you’re really into sub-.500 seasons. And of course, next summer, they could save some time and just take a $4 million check outside and burn it.
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Antoine Wright was due to have his left shoulder x-rayed or MRI’d or whatever they do these days. Caught it in the second quarter at Detroit he said. Claimed it was not serious (with the way the Nets’ health luck has gone, figure “career threatening” is in there somewhere). Officially, it’s a sore ;left shoulder and he is “day to day.”
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Frank is outwardly stay cool and calm after games. Ranting, raving ands throwing bricks wouldn’t help anyway.
“Everyone from myself, you have to look from within to find out what you can do more to help the team. That’s the only way you get out of a funk or in a bad way,” Frank said, reminding there were plenty of ledge jumpers after the loss in Utah and just as many band wagon followers after the win in L.A. “For virtually every team, things go from good to bad, bad to good. It’s the teams that regardless what’s going on can stay together and collectively understand what their recipe is for winning and being committed to that through good and bad.”
The problem for the Nets is even when they’ve gone good this year, there has been bad. There simply are no stress-free games.
“We haven’t had a breather yet where we had the game locked up with two minutes left,” said team pres Rod Thorn. “I can’t think of a game. The games could have gone either way. We’ve done a heck of a job finishing a lot of these close games because we’ve won a majority of them. But we haven’t been up like 15 at half.”
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Frank gave a fairly succinct assessment of the nightmare that was the second half Sunday at Detroit: “We started getting in an offensive rhythm in the third quarter but we couldn’t get any stops…especially on the road, you have to bring your defense with you and we had too many breakdowns.”
And so did Kidd: “At the end of the second half and the third quarter, 10 goes to 20 and that was pretty much it. We didn’t have any answers. They seemed like they made every shot or if they didn’t, they got the offensive rebound and put us in a hole.”
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Wondering what happens if the Nets get assaulted by a million or so Lake Erie midges during the game. Does Tim Walsh carry bug spray? This is the type of stuff that keeps me up at night.
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In honor of being in Cleveland, from a movie about the Indians:
Movie Quote of the Day – Chelcie Ross (Eddie Harris): “You trying to say Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?” – “Major League”