It would be far too easy to say the crash, boom, crunch noise emanating from Prudential Center yesterday was the sound of reality slamming the Nets over the noggin.
No, it was the undeniable racket of the Heat with the Big Three stomping a team — it just happened to be the Nets’ turn — into submission. In reality or a fantasy world, no one put the Nets in Miami’s class. They aren’t, and weren’t this time.
But the Nets hoped to find themselves a little closer to Miami than this 101-78 destruction. The Nets, off two comeback wins, felt the game might be a measuring stick against LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and friends.
“Definitely, and that’s why it’s disappointing we didn’t have it most of the game,” said Brook Lopez (20 points).
Actually, the Nets didn’t have it for more than most of the game. They led, 2-0. After that, it was all Heat. There were times when even the billions of owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who watched his third straight game, couldn’t have bought a basket.
“During the course of the year, you have two, three or four games where you’re not very good and this is one of them,” sighed Nets coach Avery Johnson. “We just weren’t very good from the start.”
Hey, what about that 2-0 lead?
“We were stuck in mud. We were stuck in second gear. We couldn’t really get anything going,” Johnson conceded. “Not a very good job on any level.”
This was not how the Nets wanted to introduce James — or Bosh or Wade for that matter — to Prudential Center. The South Beach trio combined for 55 points and the Heat defense turned the Nets’ offense into .353-shooting mush before a celebrity-laced gathering of 17,086.
James spent time claiming how much he respected the Nets for their free agent presentation last July 1. So he disrespected them in every way, scoring (20 points), passing (seven assists), rebounding (seven boards) and defending as the crowd booed his every move (except for one especially hellacious fast break dunk).
“It’s great, honestly,” James said of being booed. “There’s never a time where we can’t be motivated going into any arena. We know we’re going to get booed. It’s almost like we’ve won a championship already, but we haven’t done anything. We know we have a long ways to go. When we go into other people’s building, we want them to boo us.”
The Nets had a good feeling coming out of their summer meeting. You know how that went. They also had a good feeling after their first two games. All the sunshine and fuzziness disappeared quickly.
With Bosh the early accelerant, the Heat shot 71 percent in the first quarter when the Nets, basically Lopez (11 of his points in the first) and some other guys, were quickly overwhelmed and down, 29-18. The lead grew and grew and was bigger than reality TV star Kim Kardashian’s, er, name. He left with 9:19 remaining after Miami’s advantage had hit 26.
Unfortunately, the Nets had to stay. Derrick Favors was a plus with his first career double-double (13 points, 13 rebounds). There was not much after that.
“Still got some work to be done,” Devin Harris (13 points, six assists) said. “We didn’t start the game like we wanted to, got knocked back on our heels, and really didn’t recover. We just didn’t shoot the ball well. We didn’t guard well, we just didn’t play well overall.”
Other than that, they were solid.
“The good thing is we’ve still got 79 more games,” Terrence Williams (11 points) said. “They’re a great team, [but] I wouldn’t say they’re 30 points better than us or 10 points. They won by however many they won by.”