PG: Raps avoid epic meltdown, take series lead.

[OAKLEY_2]

I still can't wrap my head around Vasquez throwing the final inbounds pass towards our own basket, pretty much the riskiest pass you could possibly throw in that situation. Throw it to the other basket and it's basically physically impossible to get a shot off in the other direction in 1 second.

Thank goodness Lowry was in MVP mode tonight and props to DD for making his FT's down the stretch (even though his horrendous D on Johnson allowed them back in the game).

Such a wide range of emotions after this game

I think it should be said GV was also on the floor playing general when the meltdown started. He works well playing with KL as tandem swing guard but adding back-up point to his resume where he had 3 major brain cramps and then stays on for double point guard will surely cause me a heart attack watching it all. He dazzles at times and then infuriates.

[BballFan2014]

I've done my best to read through a lot of this thread.. and there's one thing being overshadowed due to that 4th Q meltdown.

Lowry.

Lowry was the reason for our 26pt lead. Lowry was the reason for us holding a lead late. Lowry is the reason Deron's ankle is hurting this morning. How is this not THE play of the damn season? He crossed Deron Williams HARD and finished the play to pretty much seal the victory and I haven't seen enough praise of this one play in particular. This was his biggest basket of the game.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thoL5SYboPY[/youtube]

I don't want to overpay him but without him, we would be fishing right now.

Imagine if we had no KL...? OMG.

yeah last night was KLs night, he bailed the raps out. He made Derron look bad, he took it to the nets defense. I still remember how he went under two of the defenders, too bad he missed that lay up, it would have been an epic finish if he had not. DD made those crucial FTs too, then the vasques 3 and of course Casey benched JV again but yeah if no KL = we'd be fishing or golfing by now.

[RedX]

Man everyone stfu They made a run big deal who won the ball game? Brooklyn has momentum?? Really?? Who's up 3-2?? Anyone on here not happy with the win can gtfo be proud of your team and stop bitching about everything. Raptors won the game they've got all the momentum. The pg thread makes it seem like we lost . Holy ****

With all due respect, and I'm a massive fan, my heart bleeds raptors ball, I walked out of that arena pissed.

I'm happy we won, and at least it will keep us on our toes for next game... But to blow a 20 point lead in Iess than 10 min is impressive.

it's been happening with all teams throughout the playoffs. just be happy we won.

I'm definitely happy, but that's one game I can't wait to forget. It still feels wrong.

[OAKLEY_2]

The same people complaining that this wasn't a good win are the same people who say there's no such thing as a moral victory. If there are no moral victories, there are no moral losses either.

The 4th quarter was all kinds of stupid but a win is a win

They meltdown all the time and there are moral victories. Case in point Joe and the bench almost won the series with that comeback. Stop Joe Johnson and the series is the Raps. Let him go off like that with those post up floaters and eventually we're dead.

[raps4life88]

With all due respect, and I'm a massive fan, my heart bleeds raptors ball, I walked out of that arena pissed.

I'm happy we won, and at least it will keep us on our toes for next game... But to blow a 20 point lead in Iess than 10 min is impressive.

it's been happening with all teams throughout the playoffs. just be happy we won.

I'm definitely happy, but that's one game I can't wait to forget. It still feels wrong.

haha i get it man. on to the next one! just need better rotations! game 6 will be huge.

[Patman]

http://www.netsdaily.com/2014/5/1/5671000/fans-angry-with-brooklynnets-twitter-feed-after-gratuitous-slap

lolol nets fans blaming their horrible crowd on Barclays Center employees

[tweet]https://twitter.com/TheBklynBrigade/status/461713035586183168[/tweet]

That's pretty fail if the staff took away banners from Nets fans though. lol

Did they take away that exact banner in that pic? Or did it say "**** Toronto" or something vulgar?

[BballFan2014]

With all due respect, and I'm a massive fan, my heart bleeds raptors ball, I walked out of that arena pissed.

I'm happy we won, and at least it will keep us on our toes for next game... But to blow a 20 point lead in Iess than 10 min is impressive.

it's been happening with all teams throughout the playoffs. just be happy we won.

I'm definitely happy, but that's one game I can't wait to forget. It still feels wrong.

+1

yup i felt the same way, didn't feel like a win, their bench and joe johnson pretty much bought them back into the game. Like i said its an ugly win, and Ill take it..oh well on to the next one.

[Boogie!]

I've done my best to read through a lot of this thread.. and there's one thing being overshadowed due to that 4th Q meltdown.

Lowry.

Lowry was the reason for our 26pt lead. Lowry was the reason for us holding a lead late. Lowry is the reason Deron's ankle is hurting this morning. How is this not THE play of the damn season? He crossed Deron Williams HARD and finished the play to pretty much seal the victory and I haven't seen enough praise of this one play in particular. This was his biggest basket of the game.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thoL5SYboPY[/youtube]

I don't want to overpay him but without him, we would be fishing right now.

Imagine if we had no KL...? OMG.

if we didn't have lowry we wouldn't have even been up 26 to begin with...

[Jadoogar]

The same people complaining that this wasn't a good win are the same people who say there's no such thing as a moral victory. If there are no moral victories, there are no moral losses either.

The 4th quarter was all kinds of stupid but a win is a win

what if the people who are saying it's a bad win are the same ones who believe in moral victories? If there are moral victories, then there are moral losses

but I agree, a win is a win..doesn't mean you ignore what happened, just need to take it as a learning experience which is what the Raps are gonna do

It's definitely a learning experience but there were some really stupid things that happened. Amir fouling anyone and everyone, dumb turnovers, Joe Johnson just catching fire. Memphis has blown two huge leads and have ended up winning up in overtime. I doubt they're killing themselves over it.

[C Court]

Collapses and big leads disappearing happen all the time in the NBA and basketball as a whole.

Years ago an NCAA coach told me that basketball is a game of 'ebb & flow'. Momentum swings are part of the game. It all comes down to how you handle the inevitable runs that will happen.

Off the top of my head, we've seen them with OKC v Memphis, Spurs v Mavs, Blazer v Rockets and Heat v Bobcats.

At the end of 48 minutes its about who won. Period.

Go Raps.

[Homer Jay]

One of the things that pissed me off, is that Casey left Lowry on the bench the entire time the Nets came back.

Kidd left JJ out there almost THE ENTIRE fourth with FIVE fouls, because he knew he needed to do it to win. It was a must win game so he didn't care about rotations or minutes to vets (sat KG the whole time), he went with what worked as long as possible.

These are the most important games of the year, and you have to ride your horses. If we meet the Heat and Spoelstra sees he needs to play LBJ close to all the mins to beat us (which happened almost every game we played them this year), he will.

There is nothing to save Lowry from. You put Lowry back in right away to stop the bleeding. Maybe he can't stop NJ from scoring, but at the same time, we do keep up our scoring so the lead doesn't extinguish so quickly. We've been getting all up on the Defense for letting the Nets score 30 points in almost 8 minutes but the offense was equally as bad scoring only like 8 points in those 8 minutes.

I just hate to see us go up against the Heat, have a legit chance to win a game, only to see us lose it in the fourth, because Lowry and JV sit most of the fourth, while we watch Salmons and Hayes get abused by a LBJ playing the entire fourth quarter for Spoelstra. With the two days off between games nowadays there is no excuse not to play your best player 40+ mins if you need that to win.

[Bankai]

Thank god for Lowry, couldn't imagine Raymond Felton for 3 years even if he got us got us Wiggins

[JWiLL02]

One of the things that pissed me off, is that Casey left Lowry on the bench the entire time the Nets came back.

Kidd left JJ out there almost THE ENTIRE fourth with FIVE fouls, because he knew he needed to do it to win. It was a must win game so he didn't care about rotations or minutes to vets (sat KG the whole time), he went with what worked as long as possible.

These are the most important games of the year, and you have to ride your horses. If we meet the Heat and Spoelstra sees he needs to play LBJ close to all the mins to beat us (which happened almost every game we played them this year), he will.

There is nothing to save Lowry from. You put Lowry back in right away to stop the bleeding. Maybe he can't stop NJ from scoring, but at the same time, we do keep up our scoring so the lead doesn't extinguish so quickly. We've been getting all up on the Defense for letting the Nets score 30 points in almost 8 minutes but the offense was equally as bad scoring only like 8 points in those 8 minutes.

I just hate to see us go up against the Heat, have a legit chance to win a game, only to see us lose it in the fourth, because Lowry and JV sit most of the fourth, while we watch Salmons and Hayes get abused by a LBJ playing the entire fourth quarter for Spoelstra. With the two days off between games nowadays there is no excuse not to play your best player 40+ mins if you need that to win.

This is what I've been saying. His rotations to start the 4th are really baffling me.

He clearly wants to finish the game with Amir-Pat, which makes sense, but why the hell is Chuck Hayes in to start the 4th? Jonas came in at the 5 minute mark and only played a minute before he went with Amir-Pat (only came back in when Amir fouled out). It just doesn't make any sense.

We were playing 4 on 5 offensively with Chuck out there, or 3 on 5 with the way Salmons has been playing. Jonas had it going, he was abusing them in the post...he needs to be in there to start the 4th to maintain our offense.

[RoundMoundOfReb]

Seems as if we have one epic meltdown quarter every game this series.

[Seebs]

no post game for this guy, haha

http://espngrantland.files.wordpress.co ... .gif?w=510

[sycammer]

Thank god for Lowry, couldn't imagine Raymond Felton for 3 years even if he got us got us Wiggins

this is a comment on the draft 2014 from danny ainge (it is related to wiggins potential also)

“I’ve been saying all along that the experts on ESPN and so forth are blowing this draft out of proportion,” Ainge said. “First of all, we don’t even know who’s in the draft yet. There are a lot of underclassmen that are projected, so we’re prepared for those underclassmen that are projected draft picks but we don’t know who’s going to be in the draft.

“There aren’t any game changers in the draft. There are a lot of nice players and players that we’ll be excited to work into the development, but they’re not going to come in and turn our team around in one year or two years. But hopefully we’ll be able to get a couple of players this year that will be rotation players in the NBA for years to come.”

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/03/26/danny-ainge-says-there-are-no-game-changers-in-this-draft-in-short-term-hes-right/

[BballFan2014]

One of the things that pissed me off, is that Casey left Lowry on the bench the entire time the Nets came back.

Kidd left JJ out there almost THE ENTIRE fourth with FIVE fouls, because he knew he needed to do it to win. It was a must win game so he didn't care about rotations or minutes to vets (sat KG the whole time), he went with what worked as long as possible.

These are the most important games of the year, and you have to ride your horses. If we meet the Heat and Spoelstra sees he needs to play LBJ close to all the mins to beat us (which happened almost every game we played them this year), he will.

There is nothing to save Lowry from. You put Lowry back in right away to stop the bleeding. Maybe he can't stop NJ from scoring, but at the same time, we do keep up our scoring so the lead doesn't extinguish so quickly. We've been getting all up on the Defense for letting the Nets score 30 points in almost 8 minutes but the offense was equally as bad scoring only like 8 points in those 8 minutes.

I just hate to see us go up against the Heat, have a legit chance to win a game, only to see us lose it in the fourth, because Lowry and JV sit most of the fourth, while we watch Salmons and Hayes get abused by a LBJ playing the entire fourth quarter for Spoelstra. With the two days off between games nowadays there is no excuse not to play your best player 40+ mins if you need that to win.

+1

Couldn't have said it better myself, I questioned this already in another thread and had people calling me out that we needed a Novak / hayes front court to buy us time. This is not the regular season, we have to keep the heat on the opponent, not sag off of them and keep key pieces like lowry/ JV sitting on the bench during crucial moments of the game

[ant171717]

Steven A Smith just went off on the Nets, DWill and their crowd on espn radio NY.

[KillaBeeeZ]

Steven A Smith just went off on the Nets, DWill and their crowd on espn radio NY.

link?

[BloodyNose]

Seems as if we have one epic meltdown quarter every game this series.

No matter how bad we played, the nets were just on. 44 points is the best we are ever going to see from them. But anyone who thinks this series is over is naive.