PG: Nets/Heat - Frustrating Team, Frustrating Loss

[Prokorov]

I didn't catch the game until late 3rd or early 4th quarter. But after hearing about how this team has "bought in" during the win streak, I was surprised to see our 4th quarter offense to be....Iso Joe...low post Brook. Ad infinitum.

to be honest, iso joe/iso brook was really our best bet at that point.... I mean had you watched the first 3 quarters you would have seen how bad our offense was. it was bad long jumper after bad long jumper after bad long jumper. Forced shots from joe and brook throwing it up whenever he touched it was much more effect(while still not good at all).

Alan Anderson was awful. He really wasn't doing a good job on defense and he wasn't making his shots. I think a lot of us felt that bringing him back is a good move due to our lack of legit SG options, but if he's going to play like this...then its really problematic for us because our other options in Karasev and Bojan, as bad as AA was, would not stand a chance against Dwade defensively.

if you think AA was bad then you would have thought karasev and bojan were even worse.

[SpeedyG]

So sick of seeing Dwill grimacing and injured. He is a suck magnet and inspires no confidence.

LoL they are now reporting that Dwill's injury was....cramps

[MrDollarBills]

So sick of seeing Dwill grimacing and injured. He is a suck magnet and inspires no confidence.

LoL they are now reporting that Dwill's injury was....cramps

Does he need someone to go to the store for him to get a bottle of aleeve and some pads?

[MrDollarBills]

Mirza and Jack lost us this game.

Jack just couldnt get into any rhythm tonight. He got forced into taking some late second shots due to poor offensive sets but that's the PGs fault anyway.


Mirza was horrid yet again defensively. Czar was calling him out almost the entire 2nd half. He constantly leaves his man to help on defense when it isnt even necessary. The Heat scored on him at will, repeatedly targeting him. Mirza blows and always will. It's been 3 years of this and people are still holding out hope that he will grow as a player. The guy is 29. We need to dump his Novak-ass.

I hope when I wake up tomorrow that there will be a Woj bomb

The play with him leaving bosh made no sense, but i thought most of the shots bosh hit on him were decently contested....

my problem with mirza was more on the offensive end where he went into full JR Smith chuck mode. it is one thing if he is red hot, but he was just trying to take over when shots werent really falling for him.

I think "mirza sucks" is an enormous overstatement, but I will agree that it is REALLY hard to put him on the floor if he isnt hitting shots. and this has always been the case, even back to avery. he has been wildly inconsistent, and his shot is off way more often then it is on. if he cant find other ways to contribute WITHOUT the ball on either end then its going to be like this all year. we really need more depth at PF

I'm done with Mirza, the guy has been god awful to me now. brick after brick, and his defense is non existent.

I'd rather trot Jefferson out there and let him screw up than watch Mirza chuck away and yielding next to nothing.

Crazy how we covet these euro "studs" and none of them can shoot consistently.

[F3LON]

So sick of seeing Dwill grimacing and injured. He is a suck magnet and inspires no confidence.

LoL they are now reporting that Dwill's injury was....cramps

Yeah he must have had his period

[MGrand15]

If you're gonna keep Mirza in, might as well sneak in a minute or 2 of rest for Joe Johnson. On pace to play 41 minutes tonight. Not really ideal.

We're going to need KG on Bosh. Mirza guarding him is just too tough of a matchup and Bosh is too confident.

Yes, Joe ended up playing 41 minutes. No one on the Nets played more than 30 besides him and no one on the Mavs did either. We really need to limit his minutes, but have no depth at the wing position. It's a tough situation right now and hopefully a trade can be made to add some depth at the wing and at the 4.

If we were playing a wing like Durant or LBJ - I'd agree that we need JJ to bang with those guys. We don't have much depth. The problem was the Heat were throwing Granger, James Ennis out there. To a lesser extent - Deng. Those aren't guys that are going to torch Bojan if he plays more than 7-8 minutes. I'm all for Bojan earning his minutes but anything is better than playing Joe Johnson 41 minutes on the front-end of a back to back when he's not even playing well. AA at 3, Karasev at 3, Mirza at 3. Anything to buy Joe some minutes. Not ideal but JJ needs to be fresh.

On another note - Mirza was very poor offensively - much more selfish than usual. Didn't like it but he was sort of being used like the 1st/2nd option. Didn't realize it at the time but his performance makes sense in context. After the 1st half, Deron "supposedly" was hurt a bit - it was clear that he kinda stopped attacking. He kept giving the ball to Mirza when he was barely open and forcing him to create. Two, in the 1st half, there were a couple of times that Mirza tried to make the right play and pass - only to turn it over because the Heat were playing the passing lanes very aggressively. It's clear Mirza told himself that he was going to be more aggressive in shooting.

Still inexcusable.

I really like Mirza as a player but there's going to be some nights where he just doesn't work. That's why he's not our starter. Bosh was way too confident and comfortable against him. His shot wasn't really going down enough to counteract it. In the future, I bet Hollins goes to Plumlee (assuming KG isn't able to go) - even if Plumlee/Lopez doesn't work normally.

[MGrand15]

Brook had one or two shot attempts in the first half. He was literally being ignored by our offense in favor of jumpshots by everyone else. Blaming him for his offense in the first half is absurd. He got far more involved in the second half because we looked for him, especially in the fourth.

Brook wasn't really ignored so much so as he just kind of loafed around on the perimeter. in those instances he should kind of get frozen out. he needs to make himself big down low, and not rely on faceups and jump shots. in the 4th he hit 2 or 3 jumpshots, but those still arent great shots... the rest of his shots in the 4th where from him being around the rim and making himself big. the more he fights for deep early position the more he will get the ball, both on passes and offensive rebounds.

If Brook has his feet set and it's not our 1st option (AKA we try to go to the rim then kick it out or move the ball multiple times), I'm fine with him taking a jumpshot. The problem is when he makes one - he wants to keep taking them - regardless of whether he's open or not. He took one off the dribble that was awful. On one play, he faced up Whiteside for absolutely no reason, got double teamed and took a fadeaway jumpshot that got blocked. Another awful play in a HUGE spot in the game.

This is the curse of being a skilled big man. Instead of posting up Whiteside, an inexperienced player who's weaker than Brook, his first instinct is to stay on the perimeter. Hollins needs to cut that stuff out. Lopez with his back to the basket within 10 feet of the basket is pretty unstoppable. He draws fouls or uses his soft touch to score most of the time. It's alarming how little we use this. This is on everyone but most of the blame lies on Brook.

1) Jack is always going to play more first half minutes because he starts. We don't have a chrystal ball, we dont know before hand that jack will stink it up, and if he does that dwill will do any better. Wiliams played a lot in the second half, once we saw that he was performing better then jack.

This is part of the problem right now. We don't need a crystal ball to see if Jack is going to play better or worse than Deron Williams. The offense and defense is better with Deron on the floor. Jack does some nice things but he needs a shorter leash. I'm fine with starting Jack but Deron needs to come in sooner ESPECIALLY when Jack is doing a poor job of running the offense. Right now, Deron comes in far too late. He's like the 4th player off the bench.

It's also that weird spot with like 2-3 minutes left in the 1st quarter. If he plays well, you want to keep him in the game. But you also don't really want to play him for 15-16 minutes straight without rest.

[MGrand15]

Mirza and Jack lost us this game.

Jack just couldnt get into any rhythm tonight. He got forced into taking some late second shots due to poor offensive sets but that's the PGs fault anyway.


Mirza was horrid yet again defensively. Czar was calling him out almost the entire 2nd half. He constantly leaves his man to help on defense when it isnt even necessary. The Heat scored on him at will, repeatedly targeting him. Mirza blows and always will. It's been 3 years of this and people are still holding out hope that he will grow as a player. The guy is 29. We need to dump his Novak-ass.

I hope when I wake up tomorrow that there will be a Woj bomb

The play with him leaving bosh made no sense, but i thought most of the shots bosh hit on him were decently contested....

my problem with mirza was more on the offensive end where he went into full JR Smith chuck mode. it is one thing if he is red hot, but he was just trying to take over when shots werent really falling for him.

I think "mirza sucks" is an enormous overstatement, but I will agree that it is REALLY hard to put him on the floor if he isnt hitting shots. and this has always been the case, even back to avery. he has been wildly inconsistent, and his shot is off way more often then it is on. if he cant find other ways to contribute WITHOUT the ball on either end then its going to be like this all year. we really need more depth at PF

I'm done with Mirza, the guy has been god awful to me now. brick after brick, and his defense is non existent.

I'd rather trot Jefferson out there and let him screw up than watch Mirza chuck away and yielding next to nothing.

Crazy how we covet these euro "studs" and none of them can shoot consistently.

I really don't get where his shot went. He's missing FTs. Open 3s. This guy - even through his slumps - was an elite 3pt shooter last year. This year - while he's diversified his game a bit more - his 3pt shot is awful. Hollins needs to rein him in. I like his confidence when he gets going but he needs to find his shot before he takes those DEEP 3s, the contested 3s, the 3s on the move. He's shooting 67% on 3s in the corner but his attempts from the corners are minimal. We might need to start planting him on the corner more.

It's annoying cause he's doing good things out there. He's attacking much better than he did last year. Taking less 3s, more FTs, looking more comfortable off the dribble. If he did this stuff + shot his 39% from 3 like he did last year, he'd be REALLY valuable.

[Prokorov]

Brook had one or two shot attempts in the first half. He was literally being ignored by our offense in favor of jumpshots by everyone else. Blaming him for his offense in the first half is absurd. He got far more involved in the second half because we looked for him, especially in the fourth.

Brook wasn't really ignored so much so as he just kind of loafed around on the perimeter. in those instances he should kind of get frozen out. he needs to make himself big down low, and not rely on faceups and jump shots. in the 4th he hit 2 or 3 jumpshots, but those still arent great shots... the rest of his shots in the 4th where from him being around the rim and making himself big. the more he fights for deep early position the more he will get the ball, both on passes and offensive rebounds.

If Brook has his feet set and it's not our 1st option (AKA we try to go to the rim then kick it out or move the ball multiple times), I'm fine with him taking a jumpshot. The problem is when he makes one - he wants to keep taking them - regardless of whether he's open or not. He took one off the dribble that was awful. On one play, he faced up Whiteside for absolutely no reason, got double teamed and took a fadeaway jumpshot that got blocked. Another awful play in a HUGE spot in the game.

some of those jumpers are better decisions then others. but until he shoots it over 40-42% from 16-20 feet then i dont want him taking them. especially when he shoots such a high percentage closer to the hoop. Shooting 38% from 16-20 feet, i dont see why he should be shooting those. we can and should get much better shots

This is part of the problem right now. We don't need a crystal ball to see if Jack is going to play better or worse than Deron Williams. The offense and defense is better with Deron on the floor.

that simply isnt true, and jack had several outstanding games as a starter specifically during our recent win streak. Also, our first unti the ball moved much better with jack on the floor. jack also gets into the lane, something williams simply doesnt do.

defensively deron has been better, but we have only seen this type of effort from williams as a reserve, we havent seen that same effort as a starter. i see no reason why dwill should automatically get more minutes until we see how the first 15-20 minutes of the game go.