Here are my three thoughts on the Nets’ 121-120 loss to the 76ers in Philadelphia Friday night:
1. Things went from bad to worse – if that’s even possible with this Nets team at this point – with the news that Brook Lopez is out for an indefinite period, though likely the rest of the season, with a fractured fifth metatarsal in his right foot.
It’s a devastating injury for both Lopez and the Nets. It’s now the third time that Lopez has suffered the same injury to the same bone in the same foot, after injuring it twice during the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season and then having surgery to replace the bent screw in that same foot after it was discovered in his season-ending physical after the Nets’ season ended in a first-round loss to the Bulls last season.
For the Nets, it’s equally devastating, as Lopez was the key cog in their offense, as well as the one true rim protector the team has defensively. Losing him makes an already brutal start for the Nets – they’re now 9-17 after losing to the Sixers on Friday night – somehow even more so.
The truly big question now isn’t so much how the Nets will handle Lopez’s absence over the remainder of this season, but how it will impact him moving forward. After playing every game during his first three seasons in the league, Lopez has now played just 96 regular season games over the last three years combined, and history isn’t kind to players of Lopez’s size who have suffered multiple foot injuries.
More than anything, though, it’s sad news for a player who, after making his first All-Star team a year ago, was playing at least as well, if not better this season and was becoming the consensus best offensive center in the league.
2. With Lopez now likely gone for the season, or at least for a significant period of time, the immediate focus will shift to what happens next for the Nets, and how do they cope with his absence.
The most likely changes are that Kevin Garnett will slide over to center – where, if you’re a Net fan looking for any kind of positive in this, he played much better than when he was at power forward last season – and Andray Blatche will move into the starting lineup at power forward, while Mason Plumlee, Mirza Teletovic and Reggie Evans will play behind them.
There’s also the potential for the Nets to play a lot more smallball and at a faster pace, with Paul Pierce and Andrei Kirilenko – assuming his back spasms finally subside and he’s able to return to the floor this week, as he and the Nets have been hoping. But they almost certainly won’t be able to stick with the same style they have been playing, at a slower, methodical pace and pounding the ball inside, because they now lack arguably the best and most efficient low-post scorer in the league.
3. The fact the Nets lost the past two games overshadowed what was a brilliant pair of performances from Pierce, who it seems was playing badly more because of injuries than anything else.
Pierce and others have alluded to him playing through a groin injury – one that only kept him out of the Nets’ loss to the Clippers in Los Angeles on Nov. 16 – which seems to coincide with his brutal stretch after a hot start and before he sat out for three games with a broken bone in his right hand.
Pierce has put up back-to-back games of 27 and 24 points, however, and has played terrifically at both ends of the floor. While Garnett has struggled so far, Pierce has had multiple strong stretches of play, leading one to believe that it was the injury issues that held him back during his shooting slump last month.Â