best win of the season? quite possibly. most thrilling? hell yes!
at the half, nets were down 12. and then boom. the nets answer with a 35 point third quarter while shooting a high percentage. the nets ended the quarter tied. into the fourth they went. going on an early 12-0 run, the nets looked comfortable leading by 12 with 4 minutes to go. antoine wright was handling kobe very well, players were hitting their shots, and the calls seemed to be going the nets way (for once). but, typical nets, they lost the lead with 1:30 to go. clear lane violation against the lakers led to 2 jefferson freebies, nachbar added two from the stripe, and vc added another two free throws! clutch free throw shooting by the nets? well, thankfully, kobe couldnt say that about himself last night. trailing 3, kobe had a chance to tie with 3 fts. he missed the last one, which sent nacbaar to the line to seal the game. missed the second one. so back to playing defense for 3 seconds. wright and kidd handle kobe, and rj perfectly defends the ugly vladimir radmanovic 3 pointer. endgame.
i saw some real beautiful things last night. well first off, that sean williams dunk was amazing. when he caught it and took off, i assumed he would lay it up, but nope. he defies gravity and dunks it!!!
antoine wright had an excellent game defensively, which made up for his 2-8 shooting and 0-3 from downtown. LFrank made a wrong decision to switch kidd and wright, making kidd guard kobe. kobe immediately fired off two 3s, and got the 3 free throws, where he bailed kidd out by missing the 3rd one. wright deserved to guard kobe in the waning minutes, and maybe we would’ve avoided that whole meltdown.
for the first time since the first game of the season, i felt comfortable with the 7 or 8 man rotation that we had in the final quarter. LFrank was doing great getting boki, seanWill, wright, boone, and allen playing time. and they really showed up. allen hit some early jumpers to spread the defense, so he did his job. if this is an early sign of our rotation, make note that magloire, and collins are the odd men out. then add krstic and we have some serious big guys that are going to battle for playing time.
umm…is kidd really all-defense 1st team? fisher went 8-10, for 20 points. and kidd let kobe go ape-nuts in the last 4 minutes. andadd in those 8 turnovers…i think he’s putting too much pressure on himself, cause at times things looked forced from him. he’ll get better though, especially with VC coming into form.
Memphis tommorow, look for a big offensive night from the nets, as the grizz are just horrible on D.
***Marcus Williams should start practicing this week. but eddie gill is playing really well too. should be interesting.
***special shout out to the Hungarian nets fans at NBA1 Fórum.
our prayers out to Sean Taylor. hardest hitting safety, get well.
