Official Game Thread: Suns @ Nets (Game 74)

[No. 12]

well.
might as well get more balls for the bin

I agree. This team doesn't deserve to be in the playoffs. No matter how hard VC plays and wants to win, the rest of the team just isn't on the right page. Might has well miss the playoffs, get a low pick and rest for next season.

[halfHAVOC]

actually screw the bin

sign + trade with elton brand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

is it possible for us to have

harris - vc - rj - eb - boone
as a starting lineup

[Serpo]

I can't see us having a chance to get Brand , highly unlikely. If i'll take him but damn why would the Clipps let him go ?

[halfHAVOC]

I can't see us having a chance to get Brand , highly unlikely. If i'll take him but damn why would the Clipps let him go ?

he might want to leave, its not like hes gonna get younger, lol its such a bad environment they have a losing franchise there. they wont be contenders anytime soon, he knows if he came to NJ and hooked up with VC, RJ two very good wingmans and a nice PG in harris, hed have a chance in the east.

[Serpo]

Well lets see what happens the rest of the season and in the offseason .

Even if we somehow would make the playoffs this offseason's going to be big and exciting for us.

[halfHAVOC]

kenyon martin is backkkkkkkkk

30 POINTS 11 BOARDS 2 BLOCKS

woo. if yall still root for him.

[Samuel]

Oh come on when Shaq gets the ball at that time who wouldn't foul ?
Everybody would have fouled him , everybody.

I would have jumped from the stands to foul Shaq on that play if i had been in the arena and none of the Nets would've tried to foul.

To be honest with you if they knew that Shaq would get the ball then it wuold have been the obvious thing to do.But Clearly it was not the play,Shaq was the last person suppose to get the ball.But Frank had told them to foul no matter what.

My point was not really about fouling Shaq but it was about already making up our minds to foul anybody when its a 5 point game with 48 seconds left.

Frank is not to blame for the loss at all,Harris did not impress me at all with his ill-advised shots and he needs to read the game a lot better,Jefferson was "ok",Boki has been a huge disapointment.

carter played well though his FT's hurt us and we just didnt have an answer for Amare.

BTW,Can someone please give me a reason for Frank sitting Diop and letting SWAT/BOONE defen Shaq???I just don't get that.
I understand that Diop is not a weapon offensively but we could have given him a lot more minutes.

[Serpo]

They played decently , although couldn't completely handle them and Diop just made some terrible decisions on O .

He's just a huge liability there.

[Birth of the Cool]

Nets were in it for the most part which I didn't expect. A bit of an odd game. Guys were a bit testy, Nash was off & Refs were bad as usual but at least they were bad against both teams.

VC forcing his offensive game / handling the ball more has been great for the offense but his TO's are increasing too which is not unexpected but still hurt. 3 missed FT's at the end really hurt & surprising since he's pretty clutch and has been hitting his FT's really well lately. Still playing at a high level but some of his teammates refuse to get on the VC bus and are still stuck waiting at the bench.

Devin is settling for jumpshots too much. Versus Nash or anyone really he needs to be thinking catch me if you can & look to get scores/fouls at the rim.

Amare was a one man wrecking crew. He got to the rim at will and made his medium range jumpshots. That one curl to the rim dunk (on Boki ?) was just nasty. Nets frontcourt could provide no answer as Amare played with them all night.

Krstic once again starts hot but minutes are cut as Frank doesn't trust him to be good defensively against a physical / athletic frontcourt (which these days is almost every NBA team). Krstic isn't going to get any faster or stronger so he's gotta play smarter if he doesn't want to keep getting glued to the bench for his soft D.

Nets bench isn't only unproductive but sometimes they seem to share one brain out there. SWat at least was killing himself trying to guard a physically more dominant Shaq but how he missed that reverse dunk with no one around is perplexing. Marcus finally scored on his patented layup move. Boki has been trash when the Nets most needed him down the stretch of the season, he's not a guy you can trust to be there game-to-game.

The offense is still clicking so even as the playoff hopes dim I see a nice future w/ Devin, VC & RJ at the core. It's completely different that the ironically stagnant motion offense that Nets were running while Kidd was here and at least Nets fan can pull their hair only when Nets are on defense whereas before this team sucked on both ends of the court.

[dacher]

Jobbed by the refs. Killer no-call was when Nash clearly forearmed Harris in the back causing Devin to miss a layup.

Suns hustled better than us. So many critical offensive rebounds we gave up.

Why wasn't Diop defending Shaq?!? We didn't need bad Boki out there instead of Diop. We know if Boki will show up after 5 minutes of him on the floor.

Nice job by the Suns (with some help from the refs.) Nash had a very bad game, they where without Hill. They had a couple of guys playing with 5 fouls. We could have tried harder to foul some of them out.

I think our defense was a better than both games against the Pacers. But Nash is such a good passer, Amare is such an unstoppable force, Diaw and Barbosa are quicksilver.

I am more an more impressed with Boone. Great game. He doesn't look like the great ball player he is. He's cat-like moves and reaction around the post.

I feel for VC. He's trying so hard... but the team and coach don't deliver solid enough teamwork on both ends of the floor to close out games. Baffling how we lost all our mental toughness from even last season that let us close out games. Now we are rag doll, suckers and the victims at the end of games, getting games stolen away from us by every other team.

[MrDollarBills]

I can't wait until the offseason so Snackbar won't be a Net anymore.

[jcrack32]

Difference in the game was clearly Amare. He was an absolute beast...he was unstoppable. We had no one that could even remotely slow him down. I was at this game and he's just too strong and quick for our guys. Nash was terrible but he hit two big 3s in transition at the end of the game to really seal the game.

I thought the Nets played well enough to win but just poor enough to lose. We couldn't get a rebound in the final stretch...I think Barbosa came up with 2 big rebounds to give them the ball back. VC was phenomenal again but again we got nothing from the bench. Nachbar was terrible again...really making a case for him not to be resigned. Harris needs to drive more to the hoop instead of settling for jumpers. Got to take advantage of Nash's poor defense. Frank has to play Kristic...its a joke that he got only 15 mins. Started off well but was invisible for the rest of the game. Terrible job by Frank there.

[MrDollarBills]

Yeah, Harris' #1 priority should be to take ball to the hoop and create havoc ala Tony Parker.

Krstic's defense is weak but the Nets need him out there on offense. Its not like the rest of the team is defending any better. Frank is an absolute (Please Use More Appropriate Word).

[NjNeTs1029]

i didnt see the whole game but i checked the box score at the end of the first and i saw that nenad had like 10 points in the quarter. I got all excited and thought maybe hes finally back if he can score 10 in a quarter against shaq and amare. Then i see the stats at the end of the game and he ends up with 12 points in 15 minutes. There has to be a reason he didnt get anymore playing time other than frank not playing him. I dont like frank either and im not trying to defend him, but he cant be that dumb that he stops playing a player who scored 10 in a quarter against an intimidating front court. I dont think Krstic is back near 100% yet or he would've played more than 15 mins.

[Birth of the Cool]

i didnt see the whole game but i checked the box score at the end of the first and i saw that nenad had like 10 points in the quarter. I got all excited and thought maybe hes finally back if he can score 10 in a quarter against shaq and amare. Then i see the stats at the end of the game and he ends up with 12 points in 15 minutes. There has to be a reason he didnt get anymore playing time other than frank not playing him. I dont like frank either and im not trying to defend him, but he cant be that dumb that he stops playing a player who scored 10 in a quarter against an intimidating front court. I dont think Krstic is back near 100% yet or he would've played more than 15 mins.

Like I've said before it's either Krstic still has underlying physical issues (lingering injury or lack of cardio) which I doubt since Krstic has said he's fine now OR Frank doesn't trust Krstic to play solid man defense, be fast enough for help defense, grab defensive rebounds, etc.

Krstic first half heavy minutes has been happening for quite some time now so maybe it's a plan for the remainder of the season ... ?

It's the same reason Collins was glued to the starting lineup long after he should have been...because if Frank doesn't trust you on the D side of the ball he is more comfortable putting in a more 'reliable' defensive post presence which puts pressure on VC/Devin/RJ to and the 'smaller' guys to do the bulk of the offensive work.

Me personally even if Krstic might be weak on the D side his offense more than balances it out esp. considering his replacements (SWat or Diop) are really raw offensively and aren't so superior on D that it outweights their offensive challenges. I say let Kristc work out his D on the floor and force the opposing team to try & handle his game on their end too. Force the other team to change to the Nets game plan & not the other way around....I guess it's a coaching game of chicken alot of the time to see which coach blinks first & adjust their roster/style to match up with the opposing coaches roster. I say let them blink !!

If this Nets new offense is real it will be interesting to see if next year Frank will try & go with this & just try to outscore opponents or if he will rein in the offense with roster shifts/moves to balance out the team (better D).