GT: Milwaukee Kidd's vs Brooklyn Nets - 11/19/14 7:30pm

[CalamityX12]

The quit in the team is more apparent than usual....

[JudBuchler]

Looking back its extremely shocking this team was able to beat toronto in the playoffs and reach the 2nd round, and Toronto had homecourt

No it was not shocking. We had size at every position and Joe Johnson destroyed Derozan and Ross.

yeah but the way Brooklyn looks now and Toronto looks now at the top of the eastern conference im still shocked and even then it took a last second block by pierce in game 7 to even get by them

Lopez is truly a scrub

[Prokorov]

Looking back its extremely shocking this team was able to beat toronto in the playoffs and reach the 2nd round, and Toronto had homecourt

very different team. no lopez so we were much better defensively and had 1 less mouth to feed on offense. we had pierce who while not great was better for small ball then mirza. mirza is a stretch 4 NOT a smallball 4. we ran the offense through joe and had an identity. now we have neither.

[Keith Van Horn]

Why do we have to suffer like this every year? Do we need to suck super bad every season before we can start to turn things around?

[CalamityX12]

Why do we have to suffer like this every year? Do we need to suck super bad every season before we can start to turn things around?

Worst part I'd that we traded away picks that are becoming other teams treasures

[Paradise]

Looking back its extremely shocking this team was able to beat toronto in the playoffs and reach the 2nd round, and Toronto had homecourt

No it was not shocking. We had size at every position and Joe Johnson destroyed Derozan and Ross.

We also had much better defense without Lopez and better bench production.

[therealbig3]

Well, this is kind of why people thought we were going to regress when we lost Pierce. Without him, we don't have a legit PF on this team. All of our bigs are best served playing center. With our personnel, we need to play small ball, and Pierce really found his niche at PF for us.

And yeah, we have to call out Lopez. With Garnett at C for most of last year, we weren't great defensively, but we were passable. We even had stretches where we looked elite defensively. Lopez is just too slow and soft, he really hurts us out there on defense.

And we have no offensive identity. None of our players know who the #1 option is. IMO, the #1 option should easily be Deron Williams, because he's the most talented offensive player we have...but he plays like such a coward. So Joe Johnson is our #1 option...except now we have to feed Lopez, because he doesn't do anything else when he's not scoring. And even Johnson as our #1 option is such a ball stopper and clock killer, and he tends to take his share of bad shots as well. Pair all of that up with Hollins's typical unimaginative ISO-heavy offense (sound familiar?), and you get a team that can look UGLY.

IMO, Lopez needs to come off the bench. That way, the offense runs through Deron or Johnson only, and our defense doesn't suffer in the starting lineup. Lopez can get the ball all he wants when he anchors the 2nd unit, and his poor defense can be covered, since he'll be going up against other team's bench units. Playing him next to an aging Garnett who himself is too slow for PFs just doesn't work.

[Prokorov]

0-5 since JJ went off this sh*t

0-5 since we started playing teams with .500+ records.

whats more logical, that we are losing because we started playing good teams, or that we started losing because sticks and stones break bones?

year 3 of this mess and nets fans are still making excuses and scapegoating while being in denial that we just arent that good and dont play hard enough consistently. No team led by Dwill/Lopez will ever be a contender. and Joe johnson might get you to the playoffs if you ride him as your horse, but he aint getting you much further then 1 round.

we dont have a top 20 player on this team. and we have like maybe 2 player on the entire roster who play both ways.

But hey we'd probably be 7-4 if joe kept his mouth shut amiright?

Theres no doubt the comments made by JJ offset any momentum the team was gathering. One bad loss, ok.... Two in a row, disappointing. 3? Come on fight back.... But 5.... And its not like portland or Miami were at full strength. Then Milwaukee?....

JJ intentions were good but to me it shows the team isn't feeling or clicking like they look before.

Not to mention JJ himself isn't helping.

7-4 or 4-7 if he said nothing.... He went public in a vague way which casted doubt n 2nd looks among the team.... Obviously the team isn't proving him wrong... Its not out of reason to think n see the players not playing cohesive or themselves individually

what momentum? we lost to 2 scrub teams and had to fight and claw to be horrific tank commanders like the magic. we had no momentum, we had ugly wins vs terrible teams and home losses vs awful awful teams.

whetehr joe said anything or not, we'd still be 4-7 because this team with this effort isnt beating anyone over .500.

bash joe for not being able to set a high standard with his play on the floor, but blaming our play on his comments is kind of off the wall, especially since they were pretty much spot on

[Prokorov]

Well, this is kind of why people thought we were going to regress when we lost Pierce. Without him, we don't have a legit PF on this team. All of our bigs are best served playing center. With our personnel, we need to play small ball, and Pierce really found his niche at PF for us.

And yeah, we have to call out Lopez. With Garnett at C for most of last year, we weren't great defensively, but we were passable. We even had stretches where we looked elite defensively. Lopez is just too slow and soft, he really hurts us out there on defense.

And we have no offensive identity. None of our players know who the #1 option is. IMO, the #1 option should easily be Deron Williams, because he's the most talented offensive player we have...but he plays like such a coward. So Joe Johnson is our #1 option...except now we have to feed Lopez, because he doesn't do anything else when he's not scoring. And even Johnson as our #1 option is such a ball stopper and clock killer, and he tends to take his share of bad shots as well. Pair all of that up with Hollins's typical unimaginative ISO-heavy offense (sound familiar?), and you get a team that can look UGLY.

IMO, Lopez needs to come off the bench. That way, the offense runs through Deron or Johnson only, and our defense doesn't suffer in the starting lineup. Lopez can get the ball all he wants when he anchors the 2nd unit, and his poor defense can be covered, since he'll be going up against other team's bench units. Playing him next to an aging Garnett who himself is too slow for PFs just doesn't work.

i think we are getting closer to that... i think eventually lopez becomes a 6th man. he already has been sat for entire 4th quarters. id love to see CJ at pf for a game or two and see if he can improve us on the glass with KG at center.

everything you said is spot on.

[Lamak]

Well, this is kind of why people thought we were going to regress when we lost Pierce. Without him, we don't have a legit PF on this team. All of our bigs are best served playing center. With our personnel, we need to play small ball, and Pierce really found his niche at PF for us.

And yeah, we have to call out Lopez. With Garnett at C for most of last year, we weren't great defensively, but we were passable. We even had stretches where we looked elite defensively. Lopez is just too slow and soft, he really hurts us out there on defense.

And we have no offensive identity. None of our players know who the #1 option is. IMO, the #1 option should easily be Deron Williams, because he's the most talented offensive player we have...but he plays like such a coward. So Joe Johnson is our #1 option...except now we have to feed Lopez, because he doesn't do anything else when he's not scoring. And even Johnson as our #1 option is such a ball stopper and clock killer, and he tends to take his share of bad shots as well. Pair all of that up with Hollins's typical unimaginative ISO-heavy offense (sound familiar?), and you get a team that can look UGLY.

IMO, Lopez needs to come off the bench. That way, the offense runs through Deron or Johnson only, and our defense doesn't suffer in the starting lineup. Lopez can get the ball all he wants when he anchors the 2nd unit, and his poor defense can be covered, since he'll be going up against other team's bench units. Playing him next to an aging Garnett who himself is too slow for PFs just doesn't work.

I agree with your point about not having a true PF getting significant minutes, but I think that's we have Cory Jefferson as a reserve. Doubt he gets minutes anytime soon tho. Lopez coming off the bench seems like a good idea on paper, but this is a guy that is coming back from foot reconstruction. I'd rather let him play and grow than reduce his role. Lopez is the franchise as strange as that is to say.

Also, Deron should be the #1 option on offense but he feels the need to facilitate more often and takeover in spurts. I think our offensive identity is supposed to be about ball movement and team play but our players love to stand and watch. Best player at cutting is surprisingly Bogdonavic, who also boxes out for offensive rebounds unlike other players. The team just needs to play more games, but somebody needs to start playing like they want to win, but that's been the problem all of the Brooklyn years. Somebody taking responsibility and putting the team on their back.

Random but I miss Blatche

[therealbig3]

Well, this is kind of why people thought we were going to regress when we lost Pierce. Without him, we don't have a legit PF on this team. All of our bigs are best served playing center. With our personnel, we need to play small ball, and Pierce really found his niche at PF for us.

And yeah, we have to call out Lopez. With Garnett at C for most of last year, we weren't great defensively, but we were passable. We even had stretches where we looked elite defensively. Lopez is just too slow and soft, he really hurts us out there on defense.

And we have no offensive identity. None of our players know who the #1 option is. IMO, the #1 option should easily be Deron Williams, because he's the most talented offensive player we have...but he plays like such a coward. So Joe Johnson is our #1 option...except now we have to feed Lopez, because he doesn't do anything else when he's not scoring. And even Johnson as our #1 option is such a ball stopper and clock killer, and he tends to take his share of bad shots as well. Pair all of that up with Hollins's typical unimaginative ISO-heavy offense (sound familiar?), and you get a team that can look UGLY.

IMO, Lopez needs to come off the bench. That way, the offense runs through Deron or Johnson only, and our defense doesn't suffer in the starting lineup. Lopez can get the ball all he wants when he anchors the 2nd unit, and his poor defense can be covered, since he'll be going up against other team's bench units. Playing him next to an aging Garnett who himself is too slow for PFs just doesn't work.

I agree with your point about not having a true PF getting significant minutes, but I think that's we have Cory Jefferson as a reserve. Doubt he gets minutes anytime soon tho. Lopez coming off the bench seems like a good idea on paper, but this is a guy that is coming back from foot reconstruction. I'd rather let him play and grow than reduce his role. Lopez is the franchise as strange as that is to say.

Also, Deron should be the #1 option on offense but he feels the need to facilitate more often and takeover in spurts. I think our offensive identity is supposed to be about ball movement and team play but our players love to stand and watch. Best player at cutting is surprisingly Bogdonavic, who also boxes out for offensive rebounds unlike other players. The team just needs to play more games, but somebody needs to start playing like they want to win, but that's been the problem all of the Brooklyn years. Somebody taking responsibility and putting the team on their back.

Random but I miss Blatche

When I say that Deron Williams should be the #1 option, I don't mean he has to look for his own shot...it means that the ball is in his hands, and he looks to attack. Yeah, it could mean he takes more shots, but it could also mean that he finds open players more. His entire tenure here has been defined by him deferring and passively standing around while other players try to do something. That's NEVER a good thing. A playmaker should have the ball in his hands and dictate how the offense plays, even if he's not taking the shots. That's what Chris Paul does, that's what Tony Parker does, that's what every elite PG does. When you're aggressive, you force the defense to react to you, and that opens things up for everyone. Instead, he doesn't even look to attack the rim, he doesn't even look to break people down off the dribble...he immediately picks up his dribble, passes it to Joe Johnson or Brook Lopez, and stands in the corner. WTF?

And you can't even say that it's because of his injuries anymore, because he physically looks about as good as he ever has since being traded here.

And I'm thinking about what's best for the team. Lopez and Garnett starting together is not good for the team. It hurts us. One of them needs to be benched and be the backup C. And as I've been saying for a while now...I think Garnett is just the better player. He does more useful things than Lopez does. We don't need Lopez's scoring in the starting lineup, especially when there are a lot of negatives associated when we run the offense through Lopez (ball stopping, standing and watching, bad shots, TOs). And in every non-scoring related aspect of the game, it's not even close: Garnett destroys Lopez. Those are the skills we actually need in the starting lineup, but they're being wasted when Garnett no longer has the speed to chase around stretch 4s all game while also being asked to cover for Lopez defensively...especially when he's also being asked to cover for our slow perimeter defenders as well. In his prime, Garnett wouldn't have been able to cover for an entire team of bad defenders by himself...how are we expecting him to do it now, when he's 39 years old? We need to make things easier on everyone, and the best way to do that is to take out our biggest liability from the starting lineup. And that has clearly been Lopez.

[Prokorov]

I agree with your point about not having a true PF getting significant minutes, but I think that's we have Cory Jefferson as a reserve. Doubt he gets minutes anytime soon tho. Lopez coming off the bench seems like a good idea on paper, but this is a guy that is coming back from foot reconstruction. I'd rather let him play and grow than reduce his role. Lopez is the franchise as strange as that is to say.

Lopez isnt the franchise, not when he is gone after next season anyway. there is no growing with lopez, its year 7, he is what he is. a soft 7 footer who gets by on skill and finesse who gives you nothing on D or on the Glass

Also, Deron should be the #1 option on offense but he feels the need to facilitate more often and takeover in spurts. I think our offensive identity is supposed to be about ball movement and team play but our players love to stand and watch. Best player at cutting is surprisingly Bogdonavic, who also boxes out for offensive rebounds unlike other players. The team just needs to play more games, but somebody needs to start playing like they want to win, but that's been the problem all of the Brooklyn years. Somebody taking responsibility and putting the team on their back.

Random but I miss Blatche

exactly, we need guys who want to win, not guys who want to cash checks and half ass the games

[Paradise]

Well, this is kind of why people thought we were going to regress when we lost Pierce. Without him, we don't have a legit PF on this team. All of our bigs are best served playing center. With our personnel, we need to play small ball, and Pierce really found his niche at PF for us.

And yeah, we have to call out Lopez. With Garnett at C for most of last year, we weren't great defensively, but we were passable. We even had stretches where we looked elite defensively. Lopez is just too slow and soft, he really hurts us out there on defense.

And we have no offensive identity. None of our players know who the #1 option is. IMO, the #1 option should easily be Deron Williams, because he's the most talented offensive player we have...but he plays like such a coward. So Joe Johnson is our #1 option...except now we have to feed Lopez, because he doesn't do anything else when he's not scoring. And even Johnson as our #1 option is such a ball stopper and clock killer, and he tends to take his share of bad shots as well. Pair all of that up with Hollins's typical unimaginative ISO-heavy offense (sound familiar?), and you get a team that can look UGLY.

IMO, Lopez needs to come off the bench. That way, the offense runs through Deron or Johnson only, and our defense doesn't suffer in the starting lineup. Lopez can get the ball all he wants when he anchors the 2nd unit, and his poor defense can be covered, since he'll be going up against other team's bench units. Playing him next to an aging Garnett who himself is too slow for PFs just doesn't work.

I agree everything except the Hollins part. We're supposed to be running the flex offense and it seems only KG, Bojan and Deron understand the concepts of it.

Joe and Brook are the two examples of teaching old dogs new tricks and it's not working at all. Both have no clue how to play within the confines of a disciplined offense.

[MGrand15]

Not even going to comment on many things because I'm too annoyed. I want to focus on late game coaching, Mr. Brook Lopez and Deron Williams.

1. Late game coaching. Very, very poor. The play that led to the JJ TO was a very poorly designed last shot play. You don't run a PNR with your 2 slowest players when your goal is to take a shot with 0.0 left on the clock. It allowed them to double Joe Johnson hard and put him in a weird position. He doesn't want to shoot too soon unless it's a layup but he's trapped and needs to move the ball. He ended up turning it over on a play that should've lost us the game.

2nd last second play was better. Put 5 shooters on the floor and let JJ isolate. No movement or anything but on a good night, JJ shakes Giannis a bit and send us home.

3rd play was bad. Reason? Spacing and timing. Giannis was able to contest Deron at the rim and run out and bother JJ at the same time. If JJ was in the 3pt corner when Deron made the pass, Giannis has no chance. That's where he should've been. Instead he was running out of the paint right when Deron got in there, put him and Deron in a tougher spot than they should've been.

Those instances + giving up the game tying quick hitting 3 to Milwaukee right out of the TO are signs of poor coaching/awareness by the players.

2. Brook Lopez has got to step it up. How many times did the camera pan to him and he was saying "My bad" or cursing at himself for screwing up or pointing at a teammate that he should've passed to but didn't? At some point, you need to just shut up and focus on the task or be benched. You can't go around saying my bad my bad all game. This is on Hollins as well. You can't just let a player continue to make mental mistake after mental mistake.

IDK if it's the foot or the rust or the fact that he hasn't played winning basketball since our season with PJC but Brook needs to figure it out. That's on the coaching staff. His minutes need to go down, his responsibilities need to be limited, whatever it takes. Until he figures it out.

3. Didn't even want to talk about Deron but that was an awful, awful game. I think he had a handful of possessions on offense where you could see he really wanted to make an impact. Outside of that, he was floating. He was afraid to shoot. As soon as a 2nd defender looks in his direction, he's looking to pass. That's fine if you're Mario Chalmers on the 2013 Miami Heat. That's not fine if you're the leader and 2nd/3rd option on this team. Hollins needs to hold him accountable. Early in the year, even when missing shots, Hollins called him a "force" and a leader of the squad. I haven't seen that guy for 48 minutes for quite a while.

[MrDollarBills]

Deron is the least of this team's worries.

The Center stinks to high hell and we have no defense anywhere on the floor.

[jbeachboy]

looks like kirilenko will not be returning to nets team

[MGrand15]

Awful move by Hollins to alienate AK47. I would understand if we were rolling and AK47 had his chance and blew it but the guy has barely played AND our bench play has largely been awful this year. The fact that he can't find AK47 time when AA is out there consistently turning down open shots, bricking open shots, turning the ball over, fouling jump shooters, etc - is crazy. It's not like AK47 should take JJ's spot. He should DEFINITELY take AA's spot in the 2nd unit. I'm so appalled that AK is done with the Nets.

Such a good player too. Our record last year was much better when he was on the floor. He always had the 2nd unit clicking offensively and defensively and made things happen.

[kamaze]

Deron is the least of this team's worries.

The Center stinks to high hell and we have no defense anywhere on the floor.

Have you noticed down the stretch in the last 2 games how the coach took the ball out of his hands?

Brook definitely could be better as a rebounder but I don't think he'll ever be much good at that.
The team could still be good despite that what bothers me more about him is how he doesn't hard foul to protect the paint. You don't have to black shots to keep point guards from attacking the rim let alone dunking on you..

Oh and Deron's part of the problem on defense that's why Alan Anderson was on Reggie Jackson for the last play.

[Prokorov]

Deron is the least of this team's worries.

The Center stinks to high hell and we have no defense anywhere on the floor.

this.

until we find a big that can give us consistent good minutes we arent beating anyone

[kamaze]

Deron is the least of this team's worries.

The Center stinks to high hell and we have no defense anywhere on the floor.

this.

until we find a big that can give us consistent good minutes we arent beating anyone

You really don't see how we could get better production from Deron? I'll have to log in for a game thread.