Nets and Kidd, please wake up! Again.

[Keith Van Horn]

I was originally going to post this message in the OCK game thread, but realized I wanted to start this as a new topic. I know it's only been 2 games, but we've almost done away with all the good we've accomplished in January with the Raptors and Thunder games. How can we fix things.... again?

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It was clear we weren't going to win, and at least needed to contain Durant, and we didn't have our best 1v1 defender... but to lose like that? I had to shut it off with 4 minutes to go in the second quarter.

Trying to keep some optimism, my 3 big arguments and just some suggestions...

1 - Deron should start.
Yeah yeah we've been having this argument over the last week, but the guy is our leader and how he goes, we go. He should be starting and forcing his way on other PGs and teams. When I see Tony Parker play, I think that's how Deron should play. Let Anderson move to the bench for Deron. All of the shots Pierce has been taking should be Deron's for the taking. And Deron wouldn't be a diva if he wanted to start. That's a stupid argument. IMO he can't be a leader coming off the bench. When people think of the Nets, they should be thinking of Deron. He should regularly be putting up 15-25 points and 6-10 assists a game.

2 - Our offense NEEDS to figure out who they are, get in a rhythm early on in each and every game, and show some consistency!
At the start of the game, our offense needs to revolve around Joe (1A) and Deron (1B) first, then Pierce (2), then KG (3A) and Livingston (3B).
The bench guys should be all about the inside-out game, the primary options being Blatche working hard underneath the basket and Teletovic and Anderson working the 3 point line. Then you have Kirilenko working on his midrange game and off ball movement, and Teague and Anderson working on driving to the hoop.

3 - Defense should still be who we are.
Garnett needs to stop with the tacky fouls. We also need him for 25 minutes at minimum a night. He's still a great player and does wonders for us, and we need him on the floor. He's got to be our stopper in the paint, and Pierce has got to defend better. We NEED Kirilenko regularly. And we should use Anderson, an excellent defender, off the bench... and let Livingston guard the other team's best starting player at the 1-3 position.

- Pierce should take more midrange shots than 3 pointers. When they're not falling for him, they're not falling... and he keeps shooting. I think he's falling in love with how he can pull his defender out to the 3 line, pump fake, and drive, which ultimately makes the shot harder for himself. Keep it simple and take some closer, easier shots with a quicker release.

- We should let Teague get some burn... just to too what we have and how he might work with us now versus the Bulls. Can it get any worse than Terry??


My split on all players percentage of game time played should be more like:

Deron 80% / Teague 20%
Livingston 50% / Anderson 50%
Johnson 60-70% / Kirilenko 30-40%
Pierce 60% / Teletovic 40%
Garnett 50-60% / Blatche 40-50%

Terry and Reggie should be used only if we have guns pointed at our heads, Plumlee should be used when KG is in foul trouble an Blatche is being bad Blatche.

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I just don't see how most of this doesn't register with Kidd. You see your players, address their strengths and weaknesses, and build around those things. I guess it's just the coach in me to constantly look at thing the way I construct my lacrosse teams.

[Prokorov]

I was originally going to post this message in the OCK game thread, but realized I wanted to start this as a new topic. I know it's only been 2 games, but we've almost done away with all the good we've accomplished in January with the Raptors and Thunder games. How can we fix things.... again?

----

It was clear we weren't going to win, and at least needed to contain Durant, and we didn't have our best 1v1 defender... but to lose like that? I had to shut it off with 4 minutes to go in the second quarter.

Trying to keep some optimism, my 3 big arguments and just some suggestions...

1 - Deron should start.
Yeah yeah we've been having this argument over the last week, but the guy is our leader and how he goes, we go. He should be starting and forcing his way on other PGs and teams. When I see Tony Parker play, I think that's how Deron should play. Let Anderson move to the bench for Deron. All of the shots Pierce has been taking should be Deron's for the taking. And Deron wouldn't be a diva if he wanted to start. That's a stupid argument. IMO he can't be a leader coming off the bench. When people think of the Nets, they should be thinking of Deron. He should regularly be putting up 15-25 points and 6-10 assists a game.

2 - Our offense NEEDS to figure out who they are, get in a rhythm early on in each and every game, and show some consistency!
At the start of the game, our offense needs to revolve around Joe (1A) and Deron (1B) first, then Pierce (2), then KG (3A) and Livingston (3B).
The bench guys should be all about the inside-out game, the primary options being Blatche working hard underneath the basket and Teletovic and Anderson working the 3 point line. Then you have Kirilenko working on his midrange game and off ball movement, and Teague and Anderson working on driving to the hoop.

3 - Defense should still be who we are.
Garnett needs to stop with the tacky fouls. We also need him for 25 minutes at minimum a night. He's still a great player and does wonders for us, and we need him on the floor. He's got to be our stopper in the paint, and Pierce has got to defend better. We NEED Kirilenko regularly. And we should use Anderson, an excellent defender, off the bench... and let Livingston guard the other team's best starting player at the 1-3 position.

- Pierce should take more midrange shots than 3 pointers. When they're not falling for him, they're not falling... and he keeps shooting. I think he's falling in love with how he can pull his defender out to the 3 line, pump fake, and drive, which ultimately makes the shot harder for himself. Keep it simple and take some closer, easier shots with a quicker release.

- We should let Teague get some burn... just to too what we have and how he might work with us now versus the Bulls. Can it get any worse than Terry??


My split on all players percentage of game time played should be more like:

Deron 80% / Teague 20%
Livingston 50% / Anderson 50%
Johnson 60-70% / Kirilenko 30-40%
Pierce 60% / Teletovic 40%
Garnett 50-60% / Blatche 40-50%

Terry and Reggie should be used only if we have guns pointed at our heads, Plumlee should be used when KG is in foul trouble an Blatche is being bad Blatche.

---

I just don't see how most of this doesn't register with Kidd. You see your players, address their strengths and weaknesses, and build around those things. I guess it's just the coach in me to constantly look at thing the way I construct my lacrosse teams.

Honestly, I feel like the toronto loss is a loss a team just doesnt recover from. I think maybe if we had come back with some fire and beat OKC and Indiana then maybe could have rebounded. but honestly i think that loss, how we lost it, and who lost is basically one that just sinks the ship. i see us as about .500 the rest of the way finishing wiht like 36-38 wins and likely being the 8 seed or out and getting swept in the first round if we do get in.

As far as your points....

1) im fine with deron starting. i dont see why you would move anderson to the bench instead of johnson though. JJ doesnt really work well with williams and a second unit with anderson/terry running point goes from us being an elite bench that was scoring 50+ ppg to one that probably becomes worse then average, chucks a ton, and sees a return of bad habits.

But either way, if you wanna ride or die with williams starting, im ok with it. especially if it means us failing with his return has us strong considering trading him

2) i think its going to be impossible to find an offensive identitiy with all those mouths to feed playing together. i mean, id rather see something like starting dwill/mirza/ak along with KG and one of livingston or pierce and see if that sparks some offense, i think that is more realistic as you have shooters, role guys, and only 1-2 guys who are most effective with the ball in their hands and you have 2 excellent off ball players.

3) i dont think you can have it both ways. if you want to bench anderson, start dwill, i just dont see how that team is gonna have a defensive identity. i mean, KG is still elite at center, and you can probably hide dwill on their worse player whether its their SG or SF, but i cant see us hanging our hat on defense with dwill starting and playing 35 minutes

im willing to try whatever... but personally, id rather play the guys who defend the best regardless of their offense or pay check.

if that means starting teague/anderson/plumlee or whoever so be it. if it means benching dwill or jj or pierce so be it

[Prokorov]

I just don't see how most of this doesn't register with Kidd. You see your players, address their strengths and weaknesses, and build around those things. I guess it's just the coach in me to constantly look at thing the way I construct my lacrosse teams.

i hate kidd and im the first to kill him.... but honestly he has it really tough. his best players are low effort, low leadership guys who are insanely inconsistent. his best defenders/leaders/energy guys are scrubs/career journeymen,or KG who can only play like 20-25 minutes a game and cant play back to backs. his best players dont mesh well together skill wise.

its easy to say do this and do that... and sure some/most of it might help. but i dont see any of it making a huge difference. the bottom line is in this league it comes down to how talented you are and how consistent the effort you get is. and right now we get c- effort most nights and have good but far from very good talent when factoring age/health/consistency

[Paradise]

I agree with all of that but the biggest thing is someone needs to be a consistent #1 option. We saw how everything looked when we played through Joe. Now, Joe is pulling his usual disappearing act and they tried force feeding Pierce vs OKC and it did not work.

The only thing that needs to truly change is Joe or Deron need to man the hell up and play like stars. Kidd designed the offense to be like last year's Knicks and nobody wants to play the role of Melo.

That is the biggest takeaway. Also, we need to insert Mason into the rotation. It's not a surprise he looked better against the likes of Valelnciunas, Ibaka and Adams for a reason while Garnett was useless. We truly need to start looking to add some athleticism and youth into this team. Plumlee had 14 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocks vs the Spurs primarily against Duncan and Splitter. He can play and he's actually got a higher ceiling than his brother who is a MIP candidate.

But it starts and ends with Deron and Joe. We bashed Kidd for coaching but he can't do anymore than he already has. He's coached his ass off making new lineups and going with what works. Yet, it hasn't stopped Deron from playing like a soft little bitch AFTER PRP treatment. It's on him now. No more lineups or roster changes.

[Prokorov]

I agree with all of that but the biggest thing is someone needs to be a consistent #1 option. We saw how everything looked when we played through Joe. Now, Joe is pulling his usual disappearing act and they tried force feeding Pierce vs OKC and it did not work.

The only thing that needs to truly change is Joe or Deron need to man the hell up and play like stars. Kidd designed the offense to be like last year's Knicks and nobody wants to play the role of Melo.

That is the biggest takeaway. Also, we need to insert Mason into the rotation. It's not a surprise he looked better against the likes of Valelnciunas, Ibaka and Adams for a reason while Garnett was useless. We truly need to start looking to add some athleticism and youth into this team. Plumlee had 14 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocks vs the Spurs primarily against Duncan and Splitter. He can play and he's actually got a higher ceiling than his brother who is a MIP candidate.

But it starts and ends with Deron and Joe. We bashed Kidd for coaching but he can't do anymore than he already has. He's coached his ass off making new lineups and going with what works. Yet, it hasn't stopped Deron from playing like a soft little bitch AFTER PRP treatment. It's on him now. No more lineups or roster changes.

its hard to get plumlee minutes when blatche has played so well during this 12 game stretch. and KG clearly has to play.

[therealbig3]

I've been on the "start Deron" bandwagon for a while now...but he kind of needs to PROVE that he deserves to start. Livingston has outplayed him and Deron has played like crap recently. If Deron is still playing passively and somehow failing in his role as the 6th man sparkplug while facing other team's 2nd units...why would he deserve to start? Wouldn't starting just make his issues worse?

He needs to play better, period. Then we can consider starting him. He's consistently looking like the 2nd best PG on the team and the 3rd or 4th best PG on the court. It's pathetic for a guy with his reputation. He needs to step it up, or we seriously need to consider trading him.

I really don't think there's a player that has ever frustrated me more.

[Keith Van Horn]

It sucks b/c of what Deron SHOULD be bringing to the table for us... he would be perfect.

Using the Spurs mold of the big 3 Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, we have Lopez, Deron, and Johnson. Everyone else has their specialty roles -- wing stopper (Leonard/AK), offense off bench (Belinelli/should be Pierce), complimentary player to big man (Splitter/Teletovic), X factors off bench (Diaw/KG and Blatche) strong backup PG play (Mills/Livingston).

Kidd should keep playing with the lineups and rotations. I like the Pierce PF small ball lineup but maybe it's time to change again.... but honestly that won't happen with KG in the starting lineup.

If we keep Pierce and KG for another year, I strongly believe they should both come off the bench. This team would do so much better. I mean if they're getting less minutes a game, just save them for reserve unit play and end of the game so they don't have to start.

next year:
Start games with Deron / Johnson / Kirilenko / Teletovic / Lopez
Off bench Livingston (Teague) / Anderson / Pierce / Blatche / Garnett (Plumlee)


However that's next year and not this year.
This year Deron needs to salvage this season and show he's not worthless to us. He seriously needs to be our 1B option and Johnson should be out 1A option.