GT: Rockets vs Nets | Friday, 11/01/19 | 7:00 PM EST | ESPN

[MrDollarBills]

So the team can now sign another player now that 5 games have passed and Chandler is officially suspended. I'd personally go after shumpert or cunningham.

We need a big.

Back to the old days with Cunningham playing some minutes at center, do you remember ? ahah

I don't want Cunningham, I want an extra big that can defend 4 and 5 defensively

[MrDollarBills]

When we get performances like we got from LeVert, Prince, Harris, Allen and Temple it makes is so much easier for Irving.

We need to get a split or take both of these next two games before the road trip.

Exactly.

An addendum to my previous post is that the way we played tonight (at least, based on what I was able to watch) is a much more sustainable offense over the long term.

Kyrie is a weapon that ought to be relied upon at key moments. He should not be the Nets equivalent of Harden, which he basically was for us in the first few games. While he can almost always get his shot off and make spectacular moves, that's not a sustainable offense over the course of 82-games especially considering Kyrie's size and injury history.

We were overusing him. I don't wish injuries on anyone but I believe that if we kept/keep using him that way, he will break down sooner rather than later (and then we'd be really screwed without KD or Kyrie). Tonight looked much better. What's funny is that he missed a bunch of shots he'd normally makes. If he would've hit those shots, this game would've trended more towards a 15pt blowout. Either way, I'm glad we got a win against one of the better teams in the league.

Correct. as much as how nice it looks that Kyrie is averaging 30+ ppg, the fact of the matter is, he should be drawing the defense, facilitating, and picking and choosing his spots so he will have fresh legs in the clutch like he did tonight.

for that to happen, LeVert, Dinwiddie, Prince, Harris etc need to carry that load. Drive to the basket. hit threes. make FTs.

the formula for the Nets' success from here on out for this year was established tonight. this is what we have to do to not only win games, but beat the top teams. Our homegrown guys plus Prince need to bring it. if they don't, we will lose.

[FrenchNBAFan]

We need a big.

Back to the old days with Cunningham playing some minutes at center, do you remember ? ahah

I don't want Cunningham, I want an extra big that can defend 4 and 5 defensively

That was a joke who refer when we don't have backup to Allen so Cunningham and even RHJ played some minutes at center and everyone was pissed of

[MGrand15]

Pretty sure it's all but set that we sign Lance Thomas.

LeVert was fantastic today. Started off slow with all the TOs but once he picked it up - he probably won us the game. Made a ton of tough shots. Played with a ton of energy. Defended well. Cooked Harden.

This looked like an off game for Kyrie and he Still had 22, 10, 4 with solid efficiency + the game winning dagger. He seemed anxious today. Big game on national TV. Seemed like he was forcing it. It happens. I think his mentality was in the right place.

Prince and Harris were awesome. Both ends of the floor. Such a luxury to get shooting like that from the 3 and 4 spot. Kenny drew up some nice plays to get them open.

Great game outside of that 9 minute stretch in the first half. Let's keep it rolling for tomorrow.

EDIT: Almost forgot Temple. We get blown out without him. Killed it on both ends.

Kenny's sign was amazing but I loved the communication from the team tonight. These are the type of games where the chemistry really comes together.

[kamaze]

We need a big.

Back to the old days with Cunningham playing some minutes at center, do you remember ? ahah

I don't want Cunningham, I want an extra big that can defend 4 and 5 defensively

The problem is finding that. Cunningham sures up the power forward slot if they want t a center who's available? Maurice speights Amir Johnson?

[Papi_swav]

We need a big.

Back to the old days with Cunningham playing some minutes at center, do you remember ? ahah

I don't want Cunningham, I want an extra big that can defend 4 and 5 defensively

Yea that's going to be tough to get right now but maybe after Dec. 15 or by trade deadline. Who do you think would be worth to trade for? I always liked Tolliver but idk if he's it.

[ecuhus1981]

I'm here to eat crow, humble pie and all of the other culinary delicacies of having a hot take go wrong on you.

I wasn't TRYING to make an outlandish prediction. I thought we'd get blown out tonight, simply because I figured our defense couldn't go from bad to decent that quickly. It did, and so did out FT shooting. Our turnovers are still a problem, but we player our B- game and beat a really good squad.

I don't have ratings tonight, I missed most of the game visiting a friend's newborn. From what I caught, Prince and Temple stepped up, Kyrie got caught up in one-up-manship with RW and JH, and DJ and Spence are continuing a rough patch. We're not all going to be hot at once, but it's comforting to know that we can gut out a really quality win when somethings aren't going our way.

GO NETS!

[DarkXaero]

Jordan is a bad fit defensively for this team and what it wants. He's basically just a big body for whenever we play the Sixers.

Spencer was again...bad though. Kyrie/Caris/Spencer is going to take some major work, because it becomes an ISO fest.

Temple moving without the ball was the catalyst to removing stagnation in our offense. Him and Joe are basically the only ones who seem to move without the sole purpose of "hey I'm going to move just so I can get the ball and iso"

But I will say...the defense got bailed out by Harden taking so many contested threes. Our analytics based defense philosophy is designed to counter a similarly analytics based offense like Houston.

Anytime Westbrook wanted that middle of the paint, it was there. Fortunately, Harden kept chucking from downtown.

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Thing is, Embiid is still going to absolutely destroy DJ. Kenny needs to be straight up with DJ and tell him that he needs to earn his playing time out there.

[Papi_swav]

Back to the old days with Cunningham playing some minutes at center, do you remember ? ahah

I don't want Cunningham, I want an extra big that can defend 4 and 5 defensively

The problem is finding that. Cunningham sures up the power forward slot if they want t a center who's available? Maurice speights Amir Johnson?

So I thought about this for a little, off the top of my head here are some guys I think we can go after via trade in December.

Taj Gibson
Marvin Williams
Larry Nance Jr.
Vonleh
Muscala
Tolliver

This is why I wanted to go after JaMychel Green hard in the offseason, because he can defend the 4 and 5. But it seemed like he wanted LA all along so I doubt Clippers trade him. Favors is another perfect fit.

[NetsJets]

Best win of the young season. Especially on a night where Kyrie wasn’t shooting ball that well. Levert was aggressive and it looked like his defense was back into firm. Nice contributions from Prince and Temple as well.

[GTR11]

Still early, we just seeing glimpses of what to come.

[kamaze]

I don't want Cunningham, I want an extra big that can defend 4 and 5 defensively

The problem is finding that. Cunningham sures up the power forward slot if they want t a center who's available? Maurice speights Amir Johnson?

So I thought about this for a little, off the top of my head here are some guys I think we can go after via trade in December.

Taj Gibson
Marvin Williams
Larry Nance Jr.
Vonleh
Muscala
Tolliver

This is why I wanted to go after JaMychel Green hard in the offseason, because he can defend the 4 and 5. But it seemed like he wanted LA all along so I doubt Clippers trade him. Favors is another perfect fit.

The reason I listed those players is they're not in the league andi with the Chandler suspension they can be signed.

[Papi_swav]

The problem is finding that. Cunningham sures up the power forward slot if they want t a center who's available? Maurice speights Amir Johnson?

So I thought about this for a little, off the top of my head here are some guys I think we can go after via trade in December.

Taj Gibson
Marvin Williams
Larry Nance Jr.
Vonleh
Muscala
Tolliver

This is why I wanted to go after JaMychel Green hard in the offseason, because he can defend the 4 and 5. But it seemed like he wanted LA all along so I doubt Clippers trade him. Favors is another perfect fit.

The reason I listed those players is they're not in the league andi with the Chandler suspension they can be signed.

I hear u , but what about when Chadler gets back? I like Amir though

[DeRoma]

I really wanted to catch this entire game, but I had a conflicting event so I caught the first minute and came back for these final seven minutes.

In the previous games, many people stated that the problem was defense (not offense), but I felt it was both.

I was glad to hear Kenny and the team talk about how they weren't playing offense the way that they want to, because the quality of a team's offense can have a direct impact on defense.

Despite our total PPG ranking high in the league, the quality of our possessions was horrible. We were consistently bringing the ball across half court, passing the ball once or twice and then ISO. That type of offense is so easy to defend and doesn't make the defense work. As a result, the opposition will have a ton of energy to use on offense. Combine this with the fact that we don't have great defensive personnel and games will turn into a track meet and ultimately come down to who happens to get hot and score more. With the way we were playing, we could've been 3-0 or 0-3, since our play was solely dictated on shotmaking and turnovers.

Even though I only caught the opening minute, I saw the first few offensive plays and noticed how we were moving the ball side to side and actually tried to run plays. By getting quality offensive possessions that force the defense to guard us, the defense will have less energy to use on offense. This can have a cumulative effect such that by the end of the game, the opponent could have tired legs and start missing a greater proportion of their shots.

When I came back with 7 minutes at the end of the game, I saw that we were still running quality sets but we (namely, Kyrie) were just missing shots that we'd normally make.

An offense that forces the defense to defend can only help us and cannot hurt. Considering that we don't have great defensive personnel, making sure the defense works is one way of helping yourself defend, since the opposition won't have as much energy to expend when they go on offense thereby increasing the likelihood of more misses and mistakes.

I wish I could go back to watch the full game, but I don't have DVR.


Sidenote: IMO, the way HOU plays offense is actually similar to the way we played in the first few games, but they always benefit from Harden's foul calls and the ability to slow down the game (which is also another way to slow down teams that prefer to play at faster paces with momentum and continuous flow). Since the refs tend to call less fouls in the playoffs, this is why HOU never looks as good as in the postseason compared to the regular season.

The logic of what you are trying to say is completely spot on. In other words the problem with the team is how we are pushing the tempo to hard in a consistent basis. It forces the game into a running show. Which causes a ton of problem with us because the only person who can truly contest shots from the driving lane is JA. While he is doing an Extraordinary job on that facet, it’s simply not enough for our defense to have consistent stops because transition plays puts players into rhythm. While at the same time our team doesn’t have the advantage on a slow pace shot for shot scenario due to the teams skill set is suited to be in transition.

There is a huge difference between Houston and BK. They run a more simplified version of our offense while at the same time they control the shot clock in order to slow the game down in order for them to get back on defense. They only take high field goal percentage shots and slow it down if they can’t find an easy shot. This is why they run so many iso plays with harden.

This is what Kenny needs to implement in our team in order to get more gain more control of the tempo of the game. If we can control the game we have a higher chance on winning. That or we get a stretch 5 that has the ability to pass the ball effectively in order open the space in the paint for Kyrie to play around with and utilize the Backdoor for our wings

[kamaze]

So I thought about this for a little, off the top of my head here are some guys I think we can go after via trade in December.

Taj Gibson
Marvin Williams
Larry Nance Jr.
Vonleh
Muscala
Tolliver

This is why I wanted to go after JaMychel Green hard in the offseason, because he can defend the 4 and 5. But it seemed like he wanted LA all along so I doubt Clippers trade him. Favors is another perfect fit.

The reason I listed those players is they're not in the league andi with the Chandler suspension they can be signed.

I hear u , but what about when Chadler gets back? I like Amir though

We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

[gigantes]

I'm here to eat crow, humble pie and all of the other culinary delicacies of having a hot take go wrong on you.

I wasn't TRYING to make an outlandish prediction. I thought we'd get blown out tonight, simply because I figured our defense couldn't go from bad to decent that quickly. It did, and so did out FT shooting. Our turnovers are still a problem, but we player our B- game and beat a really good squad.

I don't have ratings tonight, I missed most of the game visiting a friend's newborn. From what I caught, Prince and Temple stepped up, Kyrie got caught up in one-up-manship with RW and JH, and DJ and Spence are continuing a rough patch. We're not all going to be hot at once, but it's comforting to know that we can gut out a really quality win when somethings aren't going our way.

GO NETS!

But you were also right in the sense that-- if the Nets had played like they had in previous games, they probably would have gotten obliterated.

There were X-factors in this game that none of us could have properly predicted. It would have taken some kind of team insider to get a good read on this stuff, and we just don't have that.

[SpeedyG]

Jordan is a bad fit defensively for this team and what it wants. He's basically just a big body for whenever we play the Sixers.

Spencer was again...bad though. Kyrie/Caris/Spencer is going to take some major work, because it becomes an ISO fest.

Temple moving without the ball was the catalyst to removing stagnation in our offense. Him and Joe are basically the only ones who seem to move without the sole purpose of "hey I'm going to move just so I can get the ball and iso"

But I will say...the defense got bailed out by Harden taking so many contested threes. Our analytics based defense philosophy is designed to counter a similarly analytics based offense like Houston.

Anytime Westbrook wanted that middle of the paint, it was there. Fortunately, Harden kept chucking from downtown.

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Thing is, Embiid is still going to absolutely destroy DJ. Kenny needs to be straight up with DJ and tell him that he needs to earn his playing time out there.

That's why I said "just a big body" lol

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[Rich Rane]

Man, Common was there and Kyrie gave him his jersey.